The Jurassic World Franchise Isn’t Going Extinct After ‘Dominion’ – It’s Just Marketing
If you’ve been following the Jurassic World: Dominion press tour, you’ve no doubt heard those involved with the franchise hinting that this is the end – some in more ambiguous tones, others seemingly more direct. Most recently while promoting the film on the Today Show, Dominion star Chris Pratt had the following to say:
Chris Pratt is live with us on the plaza! 🦖 pic.twitter.com/DkitwygiuP
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) May 5, 2022
“I really do think it’s the end, yeah,” said Pratt. “You got the legacy cast back — Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum — plus the cast of Jurassic World, all our storylines converging in a way that is very much a finale.”
First things first – semantics matter. “I really do think it’s the end” is very likely the expression of a personal opinion rather than an objective fact. He later follows that up with “converging in a way that is very much a finale.“ ‘A finale’. Not ‘the finale’. As a seasoned actor with many press tours under his belt, Pratt is very familiar with how to craft his words. This is a case of him toeing the line that the marketing has chosen to land on, while also outright stating something that he knows is not entirely true. Nobody likes being put into the shoes that poor Andrew Garfield was in before Spider-Man: No Way Home came out. Marketing this film as “the end” excites fans and moviegoers – people who want to see the culmination of the Jurassic franchise’s storyline, but definitely don’t want the Jurassic franchise to end.
Let’s look at this logically: the Jurassic franchise is a billion dollar powerhouse in theaters, through retail, and now on streamers with Camp Cretaceous. Since 2018, Jurassic has managed to craft itself into an evergreen toy line with Mattel leading the charge – bringing a wide variety of dinosaurs to life in collectible play form. That in itself is a reason to keep things going. Not to mention, the only other franchise of this caliber (we’re talking box office; not quality) is the Fast and Furious franchise – which Vin Diesel and the writers seem dead set to race to the junkyard as quickly as possible. Jurassic is a massive cultural icon and an idea that Universal Pictures and fans will continue to bank on.
Remember what writer and director Colin Trevorrow has said: The entire goal of the Jurassic World trilogy was to get dinosaurs off the islands and break free of the narrative guardrails the franchise was previously shackled to. They obviously have no desire to kill off every last dinosaur in Dominion (who wants to see that?) nor do they plan to just ship them back to an isolated island after working so hard to get them off. Dinosaurs roaming the entire globe provides the landscape for a myriad of stories for years to come.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly: producer Frank Marshall has already said this is not the end – it’s the “start of a new era” for the franchise. The dinosaurs are in our world now, and there’s no going back on that – you can’t put the Jurassic story back in the box.
Don’t get us wrong, Dominion will serve as a type of conclusion for certain story elements. But will it be the end of the franchise? Absolutely not. We’re just getting started.
