The biggest sparks were made by a pair of veterans, "Inside Out" and "Jurassic World," which have been in theaters for several weeks, but still managed to outflank the newcomers to capture first and second place on the charts. Domestically, ticket sales are expected to top out at an estimated $137.4 million, making it the twelfth-biggest July 4th holiday weekend, according to Rentrak.

Those figures did represent a 5% improvement over last year, when films like "Tammy" and "Deliver Us From Evil" fell short, sending receipts to their lowest levels since 2001. Because of that weak competition year-to-date, 2015 is still outpacing the prior year's stateside ticket sales by 13.3%, according to BoxOffice.com.