Credit: Universal Pictures
Recently, the sixth entry in the Jurassic saga, Dominion, saw Chris Pratt, Isabella Sermon, and Bryce Dallas Howard team up with original cast members Laura Dern (Ellie Sattler), Jeff Goldblum (Ian Malcolm), and Sam Neil (Alan Grant). Newcomers DeWanda Wise (Kayla Watts), Mamoudou Athie (Ramsay Cole), and Omar Sy (Barry Sembene) had essential roles in the action/adventure feature as well.
Dominion was being billed as the final film. It picks up four years after Isla Nublar was destroyed; dinosaurs and humans live together, which ultimately spells disaster for humanity when these apex predators go out of control. During the promotional tour for the latest Jurassic World film, Pratt himself confirmed that it’s the end of the franchise on America’s The Today show, “It’s 30 years in the making. This is the sixth Jurassic film and the end of the franchise.”
However, the Jurassic saga continues to make a killing at the box office. Jurassic World introduced audiences to Owen Grady and Claire Dearing, a former couple who works at the Jurassic World luxury resort located off the coast of Costa Rica. You know the deal by now, they house genetically engineered dinosaurs, and all hell breaks loose when an intelligent Indominus rex breaks free. The film made over $1.6 billion worldwide, surpassing the original film that came out in 1993. The following Jurassic World: the Fallen Kingdom saw the duo reprise their roles as Owen Grady and Claire Dearing in order to save the remaining dinosaurs from a volcano that’s about to erupt. The film garnered a franchise low on rotten tomatoes from critics and fans, yet Jurassic World: the Fallen Kingdom still made over $1.3 billion worldwide. Dominion failed to reach the billion-dollar mark; however, banking over $900 million worldwide is still an impressive feat for a long-time franchise. Dominion also scored a low critic rating, but the difference here is that audiences enjoyed the latest installment more based on the 78% rotten tomatoes score.
Credit: Universal Pictures
The important thing to remember is that Hollywood is a business first, so it wouldn’t be surprising if a new round of Jurassic films came out to theaters. That speculation may be fueled due to the recent comments by Howard during her interview with People, essentially confirming that the franchise will carry forward with a new cast:
“It’s very sad to goodbye to something so wonderful,” she says. “But also, I’m very excited for the folks who will carry the Jurassic saga forward, you know? It will be with a largely different cast and all of that, and that’s something to be celebrated.” Though the studio themselves has neither confirmed nor deny that another trilogy will be made, the writer/director of both Jurassic World and Dominion, Colin Trevorrow, also gave clues that the franchise will continue during his interview with Den of Greek, “The equilibrium on the planet is left in a different place than it certainly was at the beginning of Jurassic Park, or even at the beginning of Jurassic World. I feel like part of my job was to tend this garden for a period of time and leave it in great shape… so I wanted to leave all the possibilities on the table.”
Credit: Universal Pictures
Trevorrow adds that he’s not the one who will tell the next story, “I feel like I made a trilogy of movies, and it’s a lot, he says. “It’s been nine years of my life. And I feel like the audience would probably agree that they’ve seen what I have to say about this. I think there would be a lot of interest in what another filmmaker had to say about it.” It’s possible that the story of Claire and Owen has officially come to a close, thus the final chapter billing leading up to Jurassic World: Dominion. Granted, the advertisements made it seem as if this was THE final story in the overall franchise, but how many films have stated that it was the final chapter but continued to move forward? Saw: The Final Chapter, The Final Destination, and Halloween: H20 – which saw Laurie Strode chop off Michael Myers’s head, effectively killing off the iconic villain. These films are just some examples that showcase money rules whether a franchise is truly finished.
Still, all we can simply do is speculate as previously mentioned; Paramount has yet to confirm that more films are on the way. Jurassic World: Dominion was released on Digital HD, Amazon Video, and iTunes on July 15. The official Blu-ray and DVD came out on August 16.
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