Jurassic World Dominion wasn't the best entry in the Jurassic Park franchise, but it did continue one major franchise trend. The sixth installment saw Jurassic World characters Owen and Claire team up with Jurassic Park heroes Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, and Ian Malcolm for a story that promised to return to the roots of the franchise and satisfy a nostalgia quotient that its predecessor lacked. This caused incredible anticipation, but not even calling in fan favorites could help the movie live up to expectations, and its derivative plot and weak character development were heavily criticized.
A Jurassic Park movie has still been an occasion to head to the theater ever since Steven Spielberg released the movie that started it all in 1993, changing the nature of blockbusters with his unique mixture of action, horror, and family-friendly entertainment. Each Jurassic sequel featured the latest CGI and special effects while offering opportunities to contemplate some of the loftier ideas about creation and determinism. After borrowing elements from the other films, Dominion's ending implied Jurassic Park wasn't really over, and its biggest franchise trend will thrive as long as the movies continue to be popular.
Dominion Continued Jurassic's Highest Grossing Movies Of The Year Trend
Jurassic World Dominion broke into the top 3 highest-grossing movies of 2022, continuing the trend that almost every Jurassic movie has managed to do (except for Jurassic Park III) for decades. In terms of worldwide ticket sales, it crossed the $1 billion mark, proving its box office dominance alongside other franchise sequels like Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick. After amassing a staggering $6 billion dollars globally, Jurassic movies have been one of the most lucrative Hollywood franchises of all time, showing that even with their fair share of negative reviews, Jurassic movies were all box office hits.
According to Box Office Mojo, Jurassic World is the most financially successful of the franchise domestically, with its less well-received sequels Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World Dominion coming in second and third. Bigger and flashier than their Jurassic Park predecessors, these movies took Spielberg's IP and spliced it with the modern blockbuster techniques of the MCU, creating a hybrid that mirrored the creatures at their center. Each film has carried its own unique vision for the franchise, but they haven't always resembled it.
Why Jurassic World Dominion Made So Much Money Despite Being Bad
Despite having thin storylines and a convoluted narrative, Jurassic World Dominion was a box-office success because of the franchise's strong and loyal fanbase. With the sixth movie, it was important to connect all the installments together satisfyingly. Even now, a Jurassic World Dominion extended version included more legacy cast scenes, more context for the villain Dodgson from the original Jurassic Park, and more of a spotlight on the practical effects (the most used in the Jurassic World films), indicating that it hasn't decreased in popularity since its release in the summer of 2022.
The themes involving life, death, science, and philosophy, coupled with its pioneering of visual effects in cinema and the public's enduring fascination with all things dinosaur-related, suggest that the franchise will continue to generate box office success even if the execution doesn't always match up perfectly with audience expectations. Despite all the criticism leveled against it, there's a strong chance that Jurassic World Dominion won't end the Jurassic franchise, leaving opportunities for it to expand in different directions should other filmmakers choose to take over the narrative.