'Jurassic World' Smashes The Box Office, Chris Pratt Already Signed For Inevitable Sequels

As if there were any doubt, Jurassic World dominated the box office this past weekend. However, the film has actually over-performed beyond what experts predicted.

Initially, the Jurassic Park sequel was predicted to land $155 million for the weekend. But the latest update pegs Colin Trevorrow's nostalgic dinosaur romp as grabbing over $204 million by the end of the weekend, making it the 2nd highest domestic box office debut of all-time, just behind The Avengers at $207.4 million. Marvel Studios might be getting a little nervous though, because some box office pundits are saying that by the time all the numbers come in officially on Monday morning, there's a chance Jurassic World could top The Avengers and take the #1 spot.

In addition, Jurassic World also raked in over $511 million worldwide, making it the #1 global opening of all-time. And that kind of success means there will be more dinosaur mayhem on the way, and Chris Pratt is already signed on for the inevitable Jurassic World sequels. More after the jump!

First off, once it became clear Jurassic World was a hit on the big screen (via Deadline), Pratt took to his Facebook page to thank fans for their support:

"On behalf of everyone involved in the making of Jurassic World, and believe me there are thousands of us, I want to say thank you.

It feels so wonderful to hear the overwhelmingly positive response. We are incredibly blessed and overcome with joy at the outcome of the movie and couldn't be more appreciative for the amazing support you've shown so far. This is bigger than all of us. Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Speaking with EW, Pratt was asked whether or not he's signed on for sequels. The actor says, "I am. They have me for I think 38 movies or something." It should come as no surprise that Universal wanted to lock down the suddenly huge sensation that is Chris Pratt, especially since he's one of the most sought after actors following the success of Guardians of the Galaxy. So now he's locked up in two franchises, and there's been rumblings of adding another with Indiana Jones (though Pratt has called those rumors bullshit).

So with Universal undoubtedly already counting their cash and hoping to get a sequel off the ground sooner than later, where can we head after Jurassic World? There may be some hints in the viral marketing that led up to the release of Jurassic World. iDigitalTimes watched the viral marketing for Jurassic World pretty closely, and they've noticed two items that could end up being part of Jurassic World 2.

First up, a fictional news item from Masrani Global, the Jurassic World corporate website, says this:

"November 2014: InGen expands its excavations to Siberia

The new InGen facility "Martel" based in Siberia has now opened. A rotating research team of nine scientists and an excavation crew of 45 persons will undergo 18 months of drilling at 42 glacial ice locations. The team hopes to find organic remains dating from 40,000 to 200,000 years ago. The state of the art research base has been two years in the making, and is believed to be situated over a group of wooly mammoths buried under the permafrost. "This could potentially herald a new era of scientific discovery, helping us map out our natural history like never before. I'm excited to finally see Martel on completion," expressed an excited Dr. Henry Wu, eager to add to InGen's ever growing genomic library."

With the mention of wooly mammoths, one could infer that InGen has been looking into bringing animals from the Cenozoic Era into the world again. After all, when you have a successful theme park with dinosaurs in it, why wouldn't you try to replicate that success with a park that has wooly mammoths, sabre-toothed tigers, wooly rhinoceroses and other animals from that time period?

But the argument against this potential sequel element is that after the disaster at Jurassic World, which resulted in the death of Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan), I can't imagine Masrani Global will be doing all that well as a corporation. That means any other plans Masrani might have had, including research in Siberia, would likely be shut down.

At the same time though, Dr. Henry Wu (played by B.D. Wong) was part of that research, and he made a clean getaway with InGen's mercenary team, as well as the dinosaur embryos and research they had been conducting. So there's no telling what they might be looking to do next. Clearly they're reckless enough to make even more mistakes with dinosaurs, and it might be cool to see dinosaurs clash with some other prehistoric animals.

Speaking of InGen, the second item that may give insight into what could unfold in Jurassic World 2 involves the mercenary team that Vic Hoskins (Vincent D'Onofrio) was overseeing in Jurassic World. One one of Masrani's corporate pages about their security division mentions that Hoskins was "involved in overseeing the infamous flying reptile "cleanup" operation over Canada in 2001." That's likely a reference to the pterodactyls that needed to be reeled in after the flew away from their native island in Jurassic Park III (which came out in 2001).

But with Jurassic World being overrun with escaped dinosaurs, including more flying creatures, there's a chance that they need to be tracked and captured again. Could Jurassic World 2 follow a team trying to track down roaming dinosaurs? Probably not, since the only ones that could really escape the island are the flying dinosaurs. Plus, the team would presumably need a new leader since presumably Hoskins was killed in Jurassic World (though we don't see him actually die, so anything is possible).

If InGen was working on projects elsewhere in the world, like a second park (a la The Lost World) then it would stand to reason that Owen Grady (Pratt) might be called in to help with any problems that might arise if dinosaurs escape. Again, this is probably a pretty unlikely scenario, so we'll have to wait and see what happens.

Before Jurassic World hit theaters, Trevorrow was asked about sequels, and he talked about creating a world where sequels could be spawned if desired. The director told Empire, ""We definitely talked about [Jurassic World sequels] a lot. We wanted to create something that would be a little bit less arbitrary and episodic, and something that could potentially arc into a series that would feel like a complete story."

That doesn't give us any insight into what to expect, but Trevorrow did mention another actor besides Chris Pratt who could come back for the sequel, and that's Omar Sy, who plays Grady's sidekick Barry. We get the hint that they're longtime colleagues, and Trevorrow says, "He's essentially Chris Pratt's best friend. They work together and have some pretty cool action scenes together. I wanted to create a relationship there that could be memorable and potentially carry on to future films."

There's no guarantee that any of these elements will come into play for Jurassic World 2, but considering how big of a splash Universal made at the box office this weekend, you can expect the studio to fasttrack a sequel into development. But let's hope they're not hasty about a story. We don't need another disaster like The Lost World: Jurassic Park.

What would you like to see in Jurassic World sequels?