Two new dinosaur-based movies highlight the major problems with Jurassic World's story. Dinosaurs have been a major part of science fiction cinema since 1925's film adaptation of The Lost World, famous for its groundbreaking stop-motion special effects. However, recently audiences' interest in dinosaurs has seemingly become extinct, outside the financially successful Jurassic Park/Jurassic World franchise. Even then, the most recent entry in the series, Jurassic World Dominion was heavily criticized for its story, despite becoming one of the few pandemic-era movies to gross over $1 billion.
Two recent dinosaur-based projects, 65, starring Adam Driver, and an unnamed 1980s-set dinosaur film starring Anne Hathaway, further highlight the story issues with Jurassic World Dominion, and the franchise as a whole. They do this by actually doing something new and creative with their settings and dinosaurs, rather than just rehashing the same old Jurassic Park story beats. However, 65's bombing at the box office does raise the issue of whether dinosaur movies can find financial success without relying on the Jurassic Park/World brand.
65 & Anne Hathaway's Dinosaur Movie Highlight Big Jurassic World Problems
Jurassic World's major story problem is that the franchise cannot seem to find anything new for its dinosaurs to do. Most of the appeal of the Jurassic World movies was the chance to see Jurassic Park on the big screen again, rather than any new stories or characters. This can clearly be seen with each Jurassic World sequel adding more and more characters from the original Jurassic Park movie rather than giving the new characters something interesting to do. Both 65 and Anne Hathaway's new dinosaur movie show that there are plenty of new ways to tell stories that involve dinosaurs without having to resort to nostalgia for Jurassic Park.
65 has a fun and original premise, with Adam Driver's alien accidentally crash-landing on Earth 65 million years ago and having to contend with its carnivorous inhabitants. While not a lot is yet known about Anne Hathaway's new dinosaur movie, the little that is public information is incredibly intriguing. The film is going to be directed by It Follows' David Robert Mitchell and the last time Anne Hathaway starred in a creature feature with 2016's Colossal, it turned out to be a fascinating blend of black comedy and kaiju movies. They both prove that there are dinosaur movies that can be made, without simply rehashing Jurassic Park.
Can Dinosaur Movies Find Success Beyond Jurassic World?
However, dinosaur movies seem to rarely find financial success at the modern box office, outside the Jurassic World franchise. 65 bombed at the box office, earning just over $55 million worldwide, against a reported $45 million production budget. Movies typically have to gross 2.5x their production budgets to be seen as profitable, a mark that 65 unfortunately missed. Many other recent dinosaur movies outside the Jurassic World series, have also bombed, such as Pixar's The Good Dinosaur, and the Will Ferrell vehicle Land of the Lost. While Jurassic World may have some major story issues, other dinosaur movies cannot seem to compete with its box office superiority.
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