Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park remains one of the greatest big budget blockbusters ever made, and was once the highest-grossing movie in history. And while none of the sequels have managed to match the classic original in terms of quality, the two most recent efforts have still easily eclipsed it as far as box office takings go.
The Lost World and Jurassic Park III combined made less money than the first installment, but Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World brought the franchise roaring back to the forefront of the public consciousness, blitzing past even the most optimistic of projections to haul in over $1.6 billion globally, and it’s still the sixth highest-grossing film ever.
Fallen Kingdom didn’t fare quite as well, but nobody’s exactly going to turn their nose up at a final tally of $1.3 billion. The point is, when Trevorrow claims that next year’s Jurassic World: Dominion will bring the franchise to a close, you’re best not taking it at face value given the sheer volume of money that would be left on the table if he drew a definitive line under a series that’s brought in over $5 billion for Universal.
However, the filmmaker insists that Dominion will not only wrap up the second trilogy in satisfying fashion, but it’ll also tie a bow around the six-film arc that first started almost 30 years ago.
“To me, Dominion is a culmination of one story that’s been told. When you got to the end of the Jurassic Park trilogy, it may not have been as clear in what the complete story of those three movies was because they were a bit more episodic in the way that they were approached. But this trilogy is not that way. It’s very much a serialized story.
What was important for me was, when you watch Dominion, you really feel like you are learning how much of a story that first set of movies was and how everything that happened in those movies actually informs what ultimately is able to happen in this. If kids who are born today are going to be presented with six Jurassic Park movies, you hope the parents will buy them the box set, you hope they are going to get to feel like they watch one long story.”
Chris Pratt has already compared Jurassic World: Dominion to Avengers: Endgame in terms of scope, scale and spectacle, so it might very well mark Trevorrow’s last involvement with the property. That being said, if it comes close to matching its two predecessors at the box office, the studio will no doubt be looking for someone to pick up the baton very shortly afterwards.