On 10 June 2022, the second trilogy of the Jurassic Park franchise came to a close with Jurassic World: Dominion. It brought together the main cast of Jurassic Park and the latest three films, presenting a world in which humans and dinosaurs must co-exist, rather than a couple of islands containing prehistoric animals. Then, on 15 November 2022, a special episode following the fifth and final season of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous put the finishing point on the television series.
Now, fans of the multi-billion-dollar movie franchise are wondering where the next puddle-rippling step will come from. The movies and merchandise continue to do well, and the gaming arm is going strong. Surely, Universal Pictures won’t let the franchise remain dormant for too long.
An ever-popular setting that fans want more of
Regardless of how the reviews fell for Jurassic World: Dominion, it still collected over $1 billion at the worldwide box office, The Numbers reports. That sum was the lowest for the Jurassic World trilogy, with the fourth movie and Fallen Kingdom topping the worldwide box office charts at $1.7 billion and $1.3 billion each. However, it greatly outpaced the $619 million of The Lost World and $365 million of Jurassic Park III from 2001. If anything, audiences are even more into the dystopian setting than ever before.
The show, Camp Cretaceous, was also well-received, getting an average audience score of 78 per cent and a critic score of 92 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes. Perhaps where its draw is most telling is in the ever-changing world of online slots. The page of slots at Betway is updated very regularly with new titles, and yet, Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park Gold, Jurassic World, and Jurassic World: Raptor Riches remain on the main page due to their popularity. Each is officially licensed, allowing spinners to immerse themselves in the epic franchise.
Beyond small and big screens, the brand is a massive draw for events and merchandising. Towards the end of 2022, the immersive experience at Excel in London, Jurassic World: The Exhibition, had to extend its run due to its popularity. It set a record for the venue with over 190,000 tickets sold from August to October, with the extension taking it to 15 January 2023. Then, there are the countless streams of merchandise that are always seeing new additions, like the rubber duck Numskull collectables, which now include John Hammond and Dennis Nedry.
A gaming presence as integral as the movies
Much like Star Wars used to be, Jurassic Park has always been a franchise of great games to complement the movies. Since the 1993 release of Jurassic Park on Game Boy and the NES, fans have played along to the frantic events of the movies. While launching alongside the likes of Football Manager 2022, Forza Horizon 5, the GTA Trilogy, and another Skyrim hampered sales, Jurassic World Evolution 2, created by Frontier, is the pinnacle of dinosaur park-building games right now.
Through continued support from the developers, such as the very good expansion to Malta, it has remained relevant and certainly picked up in sales well beyond the initial release window. Mobile has also become a key area for Jurassic Park gaming. Jurassic World: The Game is your standard time-walled experience, Jurassic World Alive is the equivalent of Pokémon Go, and the more recent Jurassic World Primal Ops offers an interesting action-adventure title to mobile gamers.
Beyond digital products, Jurassic Park boasts a strong presence in the resurgent board games market. The Jurassic Park Monopoly variant tweaks the rules to have a Tyrannosaurus rex hunting you down and destroying your properties. Then, there are standalone games from the franchise, like the Danger! Adventure Strategy Game, Jurassic World: The Board Game, and Escape Jurassic Park. Either way, there’s plenty to play when there aren’t any of the movies or shows on.
Impossible to let Jurassic Park fossilise
Even if the story had continued to be contained on a couple of islands, movie studios would have sought new ways to return Jurassic Park to the big screen. The simple reason is that each of the last three films eclipsed $1 billion, which is simply too much to ignore. Helping the next step, Colin Trevorrow, who oversaw the World trilogy, deliberately opened up story opportunities in Dominion by letting dinosaurs run riot across the world and leaving some loose threads with new characters, as he explained to Empire.
Producer Frank Marshall has also been quoted as being on board for more prehistoric pandemonium on the big screen. Praising the TV series Camp Cretaceous, the producer said that they’re going to sit down and “see what the future is” for the franchise. They’re “definitely looking to do more” in the setting, he says. With the last movie and final season of the series coming out in the second half of last year, it makes sense that nothing concrete is in the works just yet.
On the gaming front, the most recent release was the solid Switch game Jurassic World: Aftermath Collection. With superb voice acting and enchanting artwork, the collection of formerly VR adventure stories immerses you in the time between the fourth and fifth movies. Unofficially, however, Jurassic Park Operations from Krenautican on Dreams is the latest grand delve into the setting, taking the form of a first-person shooter crossed with horror elements and exploration.
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