Cost Of Latest ‘Jurassic World’ Movies Roars Past $1 Billion

The cost of making the two latest Jurassic World movies has surged to $1.1 billion (£885.6 million) according to documents recently filed by Universal Pictures.

The monster spending spree includes $583.9 million (£453.6 million) on Jurassic World: Dominion making it the most expensive movie of all time. The 2022 film narrowly beat previous record holder, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which cost £452 million to make.

Dominion closed out Universal’s Jurassic World trilogy and reunited the trio of stars who kicked off the franchise about reanimated dinosaurs in 1993. Lara Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill returned to join Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt who headlined the Jurassic World movies. The reunion didn’t come cheap.

In addition to blockbuster pay packets, Dominion had a hefty visual effects bill. It was also filmed at the height of the pandemic in 2020, causing the cast to quarantine for five months at the opulent Langley hotel while they filmed at nearby Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom.

The Langley is the former manor home of the third Duke of Marlborough and rooms cost more than $600 per night. It all added up.

No other single movie has had higher costs disclosed in publicly-available filings. Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War together cost more at a total of $1.3 billion (£1 billion) but were made by the same Disney subsidiary so it isn’t possible to tell how much was spent on each one.

In contrast, Dominion and its prequel, 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, were made by separate companies owned by Universal which shines a spotlight on the precise cost of both of them.

The price tag of movies made in the United States is usually a closely-guarded secret as studios combine their spending on all of their productions in their overall expenses and their filings don’t itemize the cost of individual movies.

It is a different story for movies made in the U.K. Its government offers studios a reimbursement of up to 25.5% of the costs they incur in the country provided that they spend at least 10% of the total there.

In order to demonstrate this to the government, studios set up separate subsidiaries in the U.K. for each movie they make there. These companies are obliged to file financial statements which lift the curtain on everything from their headcount, salaries and social security payments to the total cost of the production.

Universal did not respond to an opportunity to comment but its financial statements do the talking. It takes a bit of detective work to get the information from them as the companies usually have code names so that they don’t raise attention with fans when filing permits to film on location.

Dominion was made by Universal’s subsidiary Arcadia Pictures which is named after a rescue ship that carries the dinosaurs to safety in Fallen Kingdom. The company behind that movie is called Ancient Futures in a nod to the cloning process which created the dinos.

The financial statements are filed in stages which starts during pre-production and goes on long after the premiere to give the company time to ensure it has collected all of its bills and received the money for them. It explains why Arcadia Pictures only lodged its 2023 financial statements at the end of last year.

They show that the company’s costs increased by $96.1 million (£75.5 million) in 2023 bringing the total to $583.9 million (£453.6 million). Ancient Futures too is still incurring costs and its latest financial statements show they come to $555.4 million (£432 million) giving total expenses of $1.1 billion across both movies. However, it doesn’t stop there.

As this author recently revealed in The Guardian newspaper, the filings show that Dominion banked a blockbuster $114.8 million (£89.1 million) reimbursement which is understood to be the largest payment to a single movie since the U.K. introduced its film fiscal incentive scheme in 2007. It was also handed $3.7 million (£2.8 million) under the U.K.’s Coronavirus job retention scheme which helped to drive the net cost of Dominion down to $465.4 million (£361.7 million).

Fallen Kingdom’s reimbursement was slightly lower but still came to $90.9 million (£70.7 million) which brought its net cost down to $464.5 million (£361.3 million). Then come the takings.

According to industry analyst Box Office Mojo, Dominion grossed $1 billion with Fallen Kingdom’s haul coming to $1.3 billion. Universal didn’t pocket all of it.

The amount that theaters pay to studios is known in the trade as a rental fee and an indication of the typical level comes from film industry consultant Stephen Follows who interviewed 1,235 film professionals in 2014 and concluded that, according to studios, theaters keep 49% of the takings on average.

This research lends weight to the widely-established 50-50 split which would put Universal’s share of Dominion’s spoils at approximately $500 million with $650 million coming from Fallen Kingdom.

Deducting the net costs off these sums would leave Universal with a $34.6 million profit on the box office of Dominion and $185.5 million from Fallen Kingdom. And that’s only based on the theater takings without including merchandise or home entertainment revenue which goes directly to the studio. However, it also doesn’t factor in the marketing costs of the movies which are paid by the studio.

The Jurassic World movies have been a dream ticket for Universal but perhaps the biggest beneficiary is the U.K. itself. According to the latest data from the British Film Institute (BFI), every $1.33 (£1) of reimbursement handed to studios generated $11 (£8.30) of additional Gross Value Added (GVA) benefit for Britain’s economy in 2019. It helped the film incentives to generate a total of $10.2 billion (£7.7 billion) of GVA in 2019 but that’s not all.

The BFI’s data also shows that between 2017 and 2019, the fiscal incentives for film yielded a record $18 billion (£13.5 billion) of return on investment to the U.K. economy and created more jobs than ever before. In addition to hiring a production crew, studios spend on services such as security, equipment hire, transport and catering. In 2019, this led to the creation of 49,845 jobs in London and 19,085 throughout the rest of the U.K.

It’s a win-win for the studio and the U.K. which explains why Universal returned to the country to film Jurassic World Rebirth which will premiere in July. The production company behind it has yet to file any financial statements so it remains to be seen whether it will break its predecessor’s record.