Box Office Update: The Dead Are Alive @ First

This weekend at the cineplex--the buzz-worthy Evil Dead remake unleashed at #1; The dinosaurs of Jurassic Park roared at #4; while the action sequel G.I. Joe: Retaliation dipped to 3rd place. The CG enhanced prehistoric family The Croods slid in to take #2

Pamela McClintock of THR:

The modestly budgeted remake of Sam Raimi's 1981 cult horror pic Evil Dead earned a better-than-expected $26 million in its domestic bow for a No. 1 finish. Overseas, the pic took in $4.5 million from its first 21 markets for a worldwide debut of $30.5 million.

Evil Dead, from Sony/TriStar, FilmDistrict and Raimi's Ghost House Pictures, earned a C+ CinemaScore in North America. Usually that would be problematic but horror films often receive a middling grade. The remake cost $17 million to produce, and was fueled by older males (56 percent).

It is the fourth Evil Dead title and the first not to be directed by Raimi, who personally tapped Fede Alvarez to direct the reboot, which follows five friends who awaken a demonic presence while visiting a cabin in rural Massachusetts.

Nostalgia invaded the box office all the way around.

Universal's 3D rerelease of Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park also turned in a pleasing performance, coming in No. 4 domestically with $18.2 million, one of the top openings for a 3D redo (as a way of comparison, Titanic 3D opened to $17.3 million domestically). Overseas, Jurassic Park grossed $3 million from seven territories for a total opening of $21.2 million.

The 3D rerelease generated record-breaking returns for IMAX, which delivered $6 million in ticket sales -- or 32 percent of the total gross, the biggest share ever for the large-format circuit.

Universal opens the 3D rerelease of Jurassic Park 20 years after the original dinosaur movie debuted and is using the pic to prime audiences for Jurassic Park IV, which rolls out in June 2014 (Spielberg is producing but not directing). Hollywood has had a mixed track record with 3D rereleases and will be watching closely to see how Jurassic Park performs over the course of its short run (the Blu-Ray/DVD comes out in two weeks).

The Croods and G.I. Joe: Retaliation claimed the No. 2 and No. 3 spots on the North American box office chart, although the precise order won't be determined until Monday morning, since both films are estimating a $21.1 million weekend.

Croods, from DreamWorks Animation and Fox, jumped the $300 million mark globally over the weekend, becoming only the second title of 2013 to do so after Oz the Great and Powerful. Croods grossed $34.1 million internationally from 62 markets for a foreign total of $206.8 million. The 3D toon has now earned $125.8 domestically for a global cume of $332.6 million.

G.I. Joe raced past the $200 million mark in its second weekend of play at the global box office. The action pic, from Paramount, MGM and Skydance, boasts a domestic total of $86.7 million, while it earned $40.2 million internationally from 60 countries for a foreign total of $145.2 million and global haul of $231.9 million.

Internationally, G.I. Joe is already on the verge of eclipsing the $150 million earned by G.I. Retaliation in its entire run.

At the specialty box office, Focus Features' A Place Beyond the Pines rose up the domestic chart to No. 14 as it expanded into a total of 30 theaters in its second weekend, grossing $695,041 for a total $886,459 and location average of $23,168.

Among openers, Danny Boyle's British thriller Trance grossed a solid $136,103 from four theaters in New York and Los Angeles for a location average of $34,206.

Below are the top 10 estimates for the April 5-7 weekend at the domestic box office.

1. Evil Dead, 1/3,025, Sony/TriStar/FilmDistrict, $26 million

2. The Croods, 2/4,046, Fox/DreamWorks Animation, $21.1 million, $125.8 million

3. G.I. Joe: Retaliation, 1/3,719, Paramount/MGM/Skydance, $21.1 million, $86.7 million

4. Jurassic Park, 1/2,771, Universal, $18.2 million

5. Olympus Has Fallen, 3/3,059, Lionsgate/Millennium, $10.04 million, $71.1 million

6. Tyler Perry's Temptation, 2/2,047, Lionsgate, $10 million, $38.4 million

7. Oz the Great and Powerful, 5/2,905, Disney, $8.2 million, $212.8 million

8. The Host, 2/3,202, Open Road Films, $5.2 million, $19.7 million

9. The Call, 4/2,002, Sony/TriStar, $3.5 million, $45.5 million

10. Admission, 3/1,407, Focus Features, $2.1 million, $15.4 million

Next Up: It's The Black Swan-riffing spoof sequel Scary Movie 5; Brian Helgeland's Jackie Robinson biopic 42 is history come alive; Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, and Javier Bardem travel To The Wonder for writer/director Terrence Malick