Jurassic World

The Jurassic Park franchise traces its origins to American author and physician Michael Crichton's 1990 novel Jurassic Park, published by Alfred A. Knopf. The novel explored the concept of resurrecting dinosaurs through the extraction of ancient DNA from mosquitoes preserved in amber—a premise grounded in then-emerging discussions about ancient DNA recovery, though one that remains firmly in the realm of science fiction. Before the novel was even published, a bidding war erupted among Hollywood studios for the film rights. Steven Spielberg, through Universal Pictures, secured the rights for a reported $1.5 million, with Crichton receiving an additional $500,000 to write the screenplay's first draft. David Koepp subsequently rewrote the script. The resulting film, released on June 11, 1993, became a watershed moment in cinema history, earning over $1.05 billion worldwide (including its 2013 3D re-release) and winning three Academy Awards for its groundbreaking visual effects.

The original Jurassic Park trilogy established the franchise's core narrative: the hubris of using genetic engineering to resurrect extinct organisms, and the catastrophic consequences of attempting to control nature. Jurassic Park (1993) starred Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum, with Richard Attenborough as park founder John Hammond. Industrial Light & Magic's pioneering CGI dinosaurs, combined with Stan Winston Studio's full-scale animatronics, set a new standard for visual effects in cinema. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), also directed by Spielberg and loosely based on Crichton's 1995 sequel novel The Lost World, grossed approximately $619 million worldwide. Jurassic Park III (2001), directed by Joe Johnston and not based on any Crichton novel, earned roughly $366 million—the lowest-grossing entry in the franchise at that time.

After a 14-year gap, Universal revived the franchise with Jurassic World (2015), directed by Colin Trevorrow and starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. Set on the fictional Isla Nublar, the film imagined a fully operational dinosaur theme park and introduced the concept of genetically engineered hybrid dinosaurs such as the Indominus rex. It became a commercial phenomenon, grossing approximately $1.67 billion worldwide and ranking among the highest-grossing films of all time at the time of its release.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), directed by Spanish filmmaker J. A. Bayona, shifted the narrative toward dinosaur rights and the ethical implications of coexistence, grossing approximately $1.31 billion. Jurassic World Dominion (2022), again directed by Trevorrow, reunited original trilogy stars Neill, Dern, and Goldblum with the newer cast, depicting a world in which dinosaurs have spread across the globe. It crossed $1 billion worldwide despite receiving mixed critical reception.

The most recent entry, Jurassic World Rebirth (2025), directed by Gareth Edwards (known for Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) and written by David Koepp (who also penned the original 1993 screenplay), features a largely new cast led by Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali. Set five years after the events of Dominion, the film depicts a world where most resurrected dinosaur species have died off due to inability to adapt to modern ecosystems, while a few surviving species have migrated to equatorial regions. It opened to approximately $318 million globally during its July 4th holiday weekend debut and ultimately grossed approximately $869 million worldwide, making it the sixth-highest-grossing film of 2025.

According to The Numbers, the seven theatrical films in the franchise have generated a combined worldwide box-office gross of approximately $6.9 billion on a combined production budget of roughly $1.03 billion. The individual worldwide grosses are approximately: Jurassic Park (1993) — $1.058 billion; The Lost World (1997) — $619 million; Jurassic Park III (2001) — $366 million; Jurassic World (2015) — $1.671 billion; Fallen Kingdom (2018) — $1.308 billion; Dominion (2022) — $1.004 billion; Rebirth (2025) — $869 million. The franchise average per film is approximately $985 million worldwide.

The franchise extends well beyond theatrical films. DreamWorks Animation and Amblin Entertainment produced the animated series Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous (2020–2022), which ran for five seasons on Netflix and followed a group of teenagers stranded on Isla Nublar during the events of Jurassic World (2015). Its sequel series, Jurassic World: Chaos Theory (2024–2025), continued the story with the same characters now navigating a post-Dominion world. Additionally, the franchise encompasses numerous video games (including Jurassic World Evolution and its sequel, developed by Frontier Developments), theme park attractions (notably the Jurassic World – The Ride at Universal Studios Hollywood and the VelociCoaster at Universal's Islands of Adventure), toys, and other licensed merchandise. The Jurassic Park/World brand has become one of Universal Pictures' most valuable intellectual properties.

The cultural impact of the Jurassic Park franchise on the science of paleontology is widely acknowledged as transformative. The 1993 film arrived during what some researchers have termed the 'Dinosaur Renaissance'—a period beginning in the 1960s–1970s when paleontologists such as John Ostrom and Robert Bakker challenged the prevailing view of dinosaurs as sluggish, cold-blooded reptiles and recast them as active, potentially warm-blooded animals. The film amplified this paradigm shift for a global audience, presenting dinosaurs as dynamic, intelligent creatures.

NPR reported in 2018 that many working paleontologists are part of a 'Jurassic Park Generation,' having been inspired to enter the field after seeing the 1993 film as children. The rate of new dinosaur species descriptions has accelerated markedly since the 1990s, with approximately one new species being named every 10 days on average by the late 2010s—a trend attributable in part to increased funding and public interest catalyzed by the franchise. In 2013, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology honored Steven Spielberg with a recognition for his role in popularizing paleontological science.

Paleontologist Jack Horner served as a scientific consultant for the original trilogy and the Jurassic World films, and his research on dinosaur growth, behavior, and biomechanics directly influenced the films' visual depictions. The character of Dr. Alan Grant is widely understood to have been partly inspired by Horner.

Despite its positive impact on public interest in paleontology, the franchise has drawn sustained criticism from scientists for numerous inaccuracies. The most prominent is the depiction of Velociraptor: the films portray these animals as roughly human-sized, unfeathered predators, whereas the actual Velociraptor mongoliensis was approximately turkey-sized (about 0.5 meters tall at the hip and approximately 2 meters long) and, based on quill knobs found on its forearm bones, was very likely feathered. The film's 'raptors' are more accurately modeled on the larger dromaeosaurid Deinonychus antirrhopus (and possibly Utahraptor, which was described around the same time as the film's production). Crichton's novel actually used the genus name Velociraptor based on the taxonomic reclassification proposed by Gregory S. Paul, who had synonymized Deinonychus under Velociraptor—a synonymy not accepted by most paleontologists.

Other frequently cited inaccuracies include the venom-spitting Dilophosaurus with a neck frill (no evidence supports either trait in the fossil record), the portrayal of Tyrannosaurus rex as being unable to see stationary objects (the real animal likely had excellent binocular vision), and the consistent absence of feathers on theropod dinosaurs across most films. Jurassic World Dominion (2022) made a partial concession by depicting a feathered Pyroraptor, but the franchise's most iconic species remain unfeathered. The filmmakers have addressed this within the franchise's own lore, noting that the cloned dinosaurs are not pure reconstructions but genetically modified organisms with amphibian and other DNA filling genomic gaps—a narrative device that explains their divergence from the fossil record.

The cultural reach of the franchise is also evident in formal taxonomy. Paleontologist André Veldmeijer named a pterosaur species Coloborhynchus spielbergi (2003) in honor of Steven Spielberg and his Jurassic Park films. Additionally, the pachycephalosaurid dinosaur Dracorex hogwartsia (Bakker et al., 2006)—though named for the Harry Potter franchise rather than Jurassic Park—illustrates the broader trend of pop-culture-inspired taxonomic names that the Jurassic franchise helped normalize. The PMC open-access paper by Jóźwiak et al. (2015) in ZooKeys documents how the franchise contributed to a wider cultural phenomenon of pop-culture inspirations in zoological nomenclature.

The Jurassic Park/Jurassic World franchise has maintained its cultural relevance for over three decades, spanning the transition from practical effects to digital filmmaking and evolving alongside advances in paleontological knowledge. Each new installment has prompted renewed public discussion of topics such as de-extinction (the theoretical resurrection of extinct species through genetic engineering), bioethics, and the ecological consequences of human intervention in natural systems. While the scientific feasibility of the franchise's central premise—recovering viable dinosaur DNA from Mesozoic-era amber inclusions—has been effectively ruled out by studies demonstrating the half-life of DNA (estimated at approximately 521 years under ideal conditions, as published by Allentoft et al. in 2012 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B), the franchise continues to serve as a powerful entry point for public engagement with paleontology, genetics, and evolutionary biology.