Are some movie franchises like Jurassic World immune to bad reviews?

Yahoo

6 days ago

It looks like life has found a way for Jurassic World Rebirth to enjoy a pretty great opening weekend, despite an attack of middling reviews.
Set five years after Colin Trevorrow's 2022 legacy-trilogy-capper Jurassic World: Dominion, director Gareth Edwards' Rebirth takes things back to basics. With the world's dinosaur population dying out, a team of experts must visit their last remaining hot spot to gather blood samples that could have revolutionary healthcare benefits.
That's the elevator pitch. Big-name stars like Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey fill in the gaps, with original Jurassic Park co-scribe David Koepp on script duty and - oh yeah - plenty of toothy prehistoric beasts.
It's a combination that seems to have worked wonders. That stomping sound you can hear in the distance isn't an impending T-Rex attack. It's actually hoards of dino fans rushing to see Jurassic World Rebirth. Since its release last week, Edwards' sequel has so far bagged $318.3 million at the global box office — and that number is only expected to grow.
When it comes to cinema ticket sales, it's a huge bite chomped during uncertain times. It's also a return on investment (the film reportedly cost Universal around $180 million) that sets Rebirth up nicely to become one of the biggest blockbuster releases of 2025.
Its success seemingly flies in the face of all the mixed write-ups that have accompanied Rebirth's debut. A quick Google search throws up plenty of differing opinions on Edwards' sequel. From glowing critiques to those suggesting the whole franchise should finally be allowed to go extinct.
As it turns out, none of them seemed to matter at all.
By the looks of it, some franchises may be too big to be bothered by critical opinion. Like a mosquito on the back of a giant Brachiosaurus, they simply go unnoticed.
While it should always be taken with a hearty pinch of salt, the perspective offered by movie aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes provides an insightful overview. Currently, Jurassic Park: Rebirth holds a 52% critic score, leaving it certified rotten in the eyes of many critics and their reviews.
However, its audience rating tells a different story. Here, the film is a fresh success based on more than 5,000 audience reviews, many of whom seemingly love seeing people being eaten by big lizards.
Of course, sites like this can be easily manipulated — but box office receipts can't lie.
Even though critics have told us quite plainly that Jurassic World: Rebirth is the latest story in a franchise that's already on its last legs, movie fans don't seem to care.
For many, someone else's critical opinion of a well-loved franchise will never matter.
In the words of Jeff Bridges' stoner philosopher The Dude, "That's just like, your opinion, man" — and it is. When it comes to the Jurassic Park franchise, the bulk of Universal's target audience is in too deep to actually care what anyone else thinks.
Many of them — likely millennials — no doubt grew up with Steven Spielberg's original and its 1997 sequel. The same crowd likely eagerly showed up for Joe Johnston's Jurassic Park III and later got a little misty-eyed during 2015's Jurassic World, which landed just in time for its original fans to pass on to the next generation.
For this lot, no amount of reviews — positive, negative or otherwise — will be enough to dampen their interest in a return to Isla Nublar… or its increasingly extensive list of previously unknown sibling sites.
And let's not underestimate the enduring appeal of dinosaurs. Kids just love dinosaurs. The Jurassic Park franchise is the only reliable source for seeing dinosaurs in the CGI flesh on the big screen, so families continue to turn up in droves from for a dose of supersized dino action.
It's not just Jurassic World Rebirth reviews that fall into this category either.
There are other outlier franchises where reviews suddenly become meaningless, and as you might expect, many have roots in pop culture nostalgia.
Jon Favreau's live-action cookie-cutter remake of Disney's 1994 classic The Lion King remains a 52% critical dud but it banked over one billion in ticket sales.
Likewise, Star Wars fans are so invested that even their most divisive entry — one littered with enough differing critical takes to fill a trash compactor — didn't stop fans from turning up in droves. Today, The Last Jedi remains the second most successful Star Wars entry ever made.
So yeah, maybe the data does show that some movie franchises are just untouchable, regardless of whatever society's so-called tastemakers think about their overall quality.
With that in mind, it's probably worth us all holding onto our butts - because surely this means more even Jurassic World stories will be heading our way soon.