Jurassic Park & World Movies Are All Box Office Hits, Despite Bad Reviews

The Jurassic Park franchise is one of the highest-grossing movie franchises of all time, even though the movies don’t always get the greatest reviews. With Jurassic World Dominion set to deliver an Avengers: Endgame style finale to the story established in the Jurassic movies so far, it should continue this trend of box office success, even if it doesn’t see critical acclaim.

With total box office earnings of nearly $5 billion, the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies have been a Hollywood mainstay, with five movies spanning from Jurassic Park in 1993 to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom in 2018 (with the sixth movie, Jurassic World Dominion, arriving June 9th). There may not be as many Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies as there are in newer powerhouse franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the franchise’s five releases show remarkable reliability, averaging just under $1 billion each.

Related: Comparing Jurassic Park and Jurassic World Rotten Tomatoes Scores

While movies that perform higher at the box office also tend to see a solid critical reception and high scores in review aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes, that’s not the case for every Jurassic Park movie. In fact, only a few movies in the franchise have seen an overall positive critical reception or Fresh Rotten Tomatoes score, but that’s never resulted in a significant impact on the franchise’s box office draw.

Jurassic Park is Still The Best Reviewed Movie in the Franchise

The original Jurassic Park is one of the most iconic movies ever made, and with a 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s also still the best-reviewed movie in the franchise. Neither The Lost World: Jurassic Park nor Jurassic Park III garnered a Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, and the soft-reboot of Jurassic World saw much more positive reviews, earning a Fresh 71 percent, but it still wasn’t up to the same level as Jurassic Park. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom saw the most divided reviews in the franchise at 47 percent.

When it comes to Jurassic Park’s box office performance, the movie’s original run earned $879 million, making it the highest-grossing movie in history at the time, also pushing the 1993 box office to an all-time record. In 2022 dollars, Jurassic Park‘s $870 million translates to $1.74 billion (which would make it the seventh highest-grossing movie of all time if box office were calculated that way). In addition to its original release, Jurassic Park received several re-releases, including a big 3D re-release in 2013 that officially pushed it past the billion-dollar mark to where it stands today at just under $1.1 billion.

Jurassic Park’s Sequels Saw Worse Reviews But Still Did Well at the Box Office

The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III were far more negatively reviewed than Jurassic Park, and while their box office was also reduced, they were still relatively big hits for their time. The Lost World: Jurassic Park only has a 53 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but it still earned $618 million in 1997 (equivalent to $1.1 billion after adjusting for inflation), enough to make it the second highest-grossing film that year, second to Titanic (which still stands as the third-highest grossing movie of all time).

Related: Why Jurassic Park III Is Better Than The Lost World, Despite The Hate

Jurassic Park III saw even harsher reviews than The Lost World: Jurassic Park, garnering a Rotten 48 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and an also-reduced box office haul of $368 million, which may seem like a total flop by today’s standards; however, after adjusting for inflation, it’s closer to $662 million in 2022 dollars, which would be seen as a disappointing but moderate success. Even so, it’s still the lowest-grossing movie in the franchise.

The Jurassic Park sequels saw progressively worse reviews with steadily declining box office performance, but with budgets of $73 million and $93 million, respectively, they kept the franchise in the red, which is clearly a big reason for the eventual return with the Jurassic World movies, which would help revert that slump.

The Jurassic World Movies Are Box Office Hits Despite Mixed Reviews

Despite the franchise slump of The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III, the franchise came roaring back to life with Jurassic World in 2015. The movie saw a positive 71 percent approval on Rotten Tomatoes, which is good enough to be the second-highest review score in the franchise, although with Jurassic Park being the only other movie to even get a Fresh score, the competition for second place was slim.

Along with the positive reviews came box office gold. Jurassic World had a record-setting opening weekend and quickly became the fastest movie to break the $1 billion mark at the global box office, leading to a total box office run of $1.67 billion. With a moderate budget of just $150 million (compared to the $200+ million of many other box office hits), Jurassic World also brought a hefty profit margin, proving there’s still a lot of potential in the Jurassic Park franchise.

Related: Jurassic World Dominion Wastes A Key Part Of The Original Movie

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom reviews were far more negative than Jurassic World, leading to a franchise-low Rotten Tomatoes score of 47 percent, but that didn’t slow it down at the box office, as the movie went on to gross $1.3 billion worldwide. Like the Jurassic Park sequels, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was a box office success despite poor reviews, although clearly, it would have performed better if it had been better reviewed.

Whether it’s from coasting off the iconic status, critical acclaim, and financial success of the original, or simply the fact that audiences love dinosaurs, the Jurassic Park franchise has maintained its status as one of the biggest franchises in Hollywood even though most of the movies have been pretty harshly panned by critics. Similar to the Transformers movies or the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, their box office wasn’t diminished by poor reviews, largely due to those franchises cornering the market on their respective genres, although both of those franchises lack a standout critical success on the same level as the original Jurassic Park.

As the biggest movie in the Jurassic Park/World franchise yet, Jurassic World Dominion has a lot on its shoulders, especially with the return of classic Jurassic Park characters like Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum). Hopes are obviously high that the movie can recapture more of the franchise’s original critical glory, but based on the franchise’s history, it’ll still see a solid box office performance even if critics don’t love it.

Next: Jurassic World 3: Every Returning Character In The Sequel

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