Jurassic Cinematic Universe - yay or nay?

Something I've been thinking about is the concept of Jurassic as a cinematic universe, containing more than a story about people trapped on an island every few years. IMO, the world Crichton created could well support a "cinematic universe" approach, similarly to Lucasfilm putting out another "Star Wars" every year. Just for example:

-2018, "Fallen Kingdom"

-2019, an "Ice Age" movie featuring unadapted novel characters like Richard Levine & Jack Thorne, plus InGen and Henry Wu, prehistoric mammals and cave men

-2020, a "Jurassic Shark" movie featuring Alan Grant, BioSyn and prehistoric marine reptiles

-2021, "Jurassic World 3"

-2022, a prequel about the making of the original Jurassic Park featuring a young Hammond, Lockwood, Wu, Muldoon, Nedry, Ludlow, Arnold, Dodgson, ETC

2022 - A live-action TV series about "Jurassic Trackers" dealing with the increasing number of prehistoric creatures in the modern world

2023 - Ice Age 2 featuring Ellie Sattler

2024 - A "Chaos Effect" mad science movie with a bunch of prehistoric hybrids, featuring InGen and BioSyn in a "cloning war" and the Jurassic Trackers

And so on. These are just examples, feel free to add your own ideas.

So, would you like an expanded "Jurassic Universe", or are you happy with a movie every few years?

I say no for 3 reasons.

1. Universal doesn't care about the franchise enough to do it.

2. They'd only botch it like they did with their planned Dark Universe.

3. Personally, I'd rather the franchise expanded via another movie company rather then a cinematic universe.

I'm all for it. Yearly Jurassic Park content... well, how can I say no to that?

The only one I see in this list of having even the slightest chance of getting made is a prequel. The one with the marine reptiles is a pipe dream but I doubt from a storyline POV, Grant would even think of doing that, and even then his character could very well bite the dust.

^^ Grant probably wouldn't come back if he had any choice in the matter, you're right there. But these were just meant to be examples. Whoever wants to can list their suggestions for other Jurassic movies.

I was leaning towards “maybe,” but as Rhedosaurus pointed out, Universal is under incompetent management with their dark universe and terrible corporate decisions in general. What I foresee is JW3, a few video games, ten years, and a remake featuring drastically different plot points yet similar aesthetics to keep the brand unified. That way they don’t have to change the theme parks too drastically, too. Whether this is done under ownership of Disney isn’t as significant as it is for Star Wars, as by then the company’s size will force them to let their subdivisions have more free reign.

The last thing I want is a prequel to the current movies. Part of John Hammond’s arc is that prior to JP, there weren’t any major disasters. He kept building this delusion that he could have his giant theme park, and then disaster struck and he was forced to face reality. To have a disaster worth exploring in a prequel movie, only for him to grin and try to open the park anyway, would kind of weaken John Hammond as the character Spielberg put to screen. That’s more in line with Novel Hammond, which could be brought to life in the remake.

I would be all for it if we basically had a hard reboot after JW3 and the franchise goes back to the Crichton estate. I don't think there's a whole lot of room in the established canon for a whole lot of the crazier plot lines to be reasonable, nor a show of some kind. Honestly though, I wouldn't mind a hard reboot. This canon has been in effect for over 20 years (albeit 14 of that was in development hell), it'd be nice to see a more modern take on the original film, especially as we understand far more about genetics than we did back in the late 1980's when the franchise was conceived. The science in the film could be a lot more accurate while still being fantastical enough to allow these crazy situations to develop, instead of basically having its own 'in universe' science. I dunno, that's my 2 cents. I wouldn't mind a Jurassic Cinematic Universe happening if we had a hard reboot to justify it.

I actually think a new adaptation closer to the novel at some point could be nice...perhaps even done on TV, like on HBO or Amazon, assuming they had the budget. They could update it to a degree as you suggest, but also include a lot more of Crichton's original material.

I say nay. The series has already struggled coming up with new ideas for each subsequent film. After a while every film would eventually just turn into another JP3. People running away from dinosaurs without any actual thought or substance put into it.

Saurillian wrote:

I would be all for it if we basically had a hard reboot after JW3 and the franchise goes back to the Crichton estate. I don't think there's a whole lot of room in the established canon for a whole lot of the crazier plot lines to be reasonable, nor a show of some kind. Honestly though, I wouldn't mind a hard reboot. This canon has been in effect for over 20 years (albeit 14 of that was in development hell), it'd be nice to see a more modern take on the original film, especially as we understand far more about genetics than we did back in the late 1980's when the franchise was conceived. The science in the film could be a lot more accurate while still being fantastical enough to allow these crazy situations to develop, instead of basically having its own 'in universe' science. I dunno, that's my 2 cents. I wouldn't mind a Jurassic Cinematic Universe happening if we had a hard reboot to justify it.

I think a remake could change a lot of things. Make it darker and closer to the novel, but still incorporate the T. Rex at the end. Gender-swap some of the characters such as Ed Regis and Dr. Wu, because let’s face it, these days that would be a Hollywood mandate. Keep the heroic Gennaro and villainous, sociopathic Hammond. Those would really throw audiences for a loop.

BoulderFaceplant wrote:

Saurillian wrote:

I would be all for it if we basically had a hard reboot after JW3 and the franchise goes back to the Crichton estate. I don't think there's a whole lot of room in the established canon for a whole lot of the crazier plot lines to be reasonable, nor a show of some kind. Honestly though, I wouldn't mind a hard reboot. This canon has been in effect for over 20 years (albeit 14 of that was in development hell), it'd be nice to see a more modern take on the original film, especially as we understand far more about genetics than we did back in the late 1980's when the franchise was conceived. The science in the film could be a lot more accurate while still being fantastical enough to allow these crazy situations to develop, instead of basically having its own 'in universe' science. I dunno, that's my 2 cents. I wouldn't mind a Jurassic Cinematic Universe happening if we had a hard reboot to justify it.

I think a remake could change a lot of things. Make it darker and closer to the novel, but still incorporate the T. Rex at the end. Gender-swap some of the characters such as Ed Regis and Dr. Wu, because let’s face it, these days that would be a Hollywood mandate. Keep the heroic Gennaro and villainous, sociopathic Hammond. Those would really throw audiences for a loop.

Exactly! You could do so much with a hard reboot that you couldn't possibly do with the current cannon. It could be SO much darker if you wanted it to be, akin to the novels, you could add in hybrids EARLY in the franchise to better explain them and be able to use them to greater extremes in the future, you could expand more on BioSyn and have them play a far greater role in the franchise. The possibilities literally become endless. So much could be explored. Don't get me wrong, I adore the current canon with all my heart, and even if a new canon was developed I'd probably still prefer this canon over it for nostalgias sake alone. But it may be necessary for the franchise to have a future, especially with the Crichton estate. If they'd want to make movies, I'm sure they wouldn't want to have to abide by the rules Spielberg and Trevorrow have put in place

I think the only way this could work is if you did a movie with the other techno Crichton films like Next, Micro and Prey. Also by establishing Biosyn you could do a movie through different viewpoints. The end of Fallen Kingdom already suggests that the JW3 will stretch the plot to the craziest it can go (full on mainland plot) so Im not sure...

I voted Yes for the idea of a shared universe, but I did it only for the sense of a closer-knit and cohesive continuity. Universal needs to start putting some effort into the property first. Basically they need to research what is there and pick through it - a mostly similar approach to like what we do on Jurassic-Pedia (formerly JPL's Encyclopedia) - and start taking the authority to dictate the canon with it (unlike us, we archive and organize to be efficient with the project as well as honor Crichton's wishes for separate media) and provide direction on the dubious elements of what is and isn't canon. Stop hinting, get direct, cut the BS.

Outside of that, I would say they need to stop the derping when it comes to everything else from the colors of the animals. Like seriously, how can you not look at the animal and not know what color it is or pick the opposite color of what it is? This is bloody easy. Take for instance the JP/JW Rex here. We've had it look everything from red to purple and on over to green. There's hints sure, but isn't any of those, it isn't green, it's now 'light brown', and it isn't even olive drab! Dark brown. Papo nailed the look with their Brown Rex and that's sad because Papo isn't even making Jurassic Park/World licensed stuff! So look at it during the day time in the field when it chases the Gallis and stop being stupid about it! Outside of the coloration issue we have stupid stuff like the JW Spinosaurus skeleton being the JP3 Spinosaurus because they couldn't be bothered to see that anatomically it very well couldn't and wouldn't be the case. Either way here knowing the canon and dictating does require Uni to put massive effort into researching what is there already and ironing it out without defying logic and reason in terms of pandering to certain fan canons. That said is that all this is something I don't see Uni is capable of doing at the moment nor in the future unfortunately.

Three years ago, the Star Wars fandom was chomping at the bit at the idea of an expanded Star Wars cinematic universe. But now that some time has passed and most of the Star Wars installments from Disney, though critically acclaimed on Rotten Tomatoes and making bank at the box office, are highly divisive among the wider Star Wars fandom. I ultimately voted no because right now cinematic universes that aren't the MCU are in turmoil, and Universal attempting to branch this out into a series of yearly event movies will in my opinion make the franchise lose its specialness and substance. In 2015, both Star Wars and Jurassic Park stood at a crossroads in their respective history, and while Star Wars has been incredibly lucrative it hasn't been the golden home run many fans dreamed it would be. Jurassic World by comparison has not measured up to its classic predecessor, but its sequel hasn't had anywhere near the same level of production woes that have plagued the Star Wars anthology films. How it will fare creatively is still up in the air, and the trailer has given a lot of fans pause.

I do think that the Crichton novels can and will at some point be adapted and even set in a more modern context, but would probably best thrive on HBO or Amazon for the mature tone and hard R rated scenes of violence to be depicted in a way that a PG-13 blockbuster (even with a great horror film director like Bayona) would not be able to. From that point onwards, you could integrate stories like Prey, Micro and possibly Congo with interconnected tissue between them.

BarrytheOnyx wrote:

I do think that the Crichton novels can and will at some point be adapted and even set in a more modern context, but would probably best thrive on HBO or Amazon for the mature tone and hard R rated scenes of violence to be depicted in a way that a PG-13 blockbuster (even with a great horror film director like Bayona) would not be able to. From that point onwards, you could integrate stories like Prey, Micro and possibly Congo with interconnected tissue between them.

I highly agree with this sentiment. A novel-loyal adaptation would be awesome especially if the elements were modernized.

I agree that a shared universe with other Crichton novels could be quite cool...kind of similarly to the shared Stephen King universe where many of his works take place in the same world.

As much as I'd like to see it, I seriously doubt we'll ever see a proper adaptation of the Crichton book. Any JP reboot will be closer to the first film than the book.

^ Yeah. An R rating will cause them to miss out on a lot of profit. However, I could see the novel adapted into a Netflix series... possibly.

I’d be all for spin off movies and prequels. As long as they make sense.

Troyal1 wrote:

I’d be all for spin off movies and prequels. As long as they make sense.

I think that the JP movieverse is a bit too grounded to allow spin-offs. As for prequels, they might be possible. I'm more for in-between movies. Here are two examples.

1. A movie that happens between JP3 and JW, mainly to fill in the holes in the canon.

2. A movie that happens not long after the first park fell.

Rhedosaurus wrote:

Troyal1 wrote:

I’d be all for spin off movies and prequels. As long as they make sense.

I think that the JP movieverse is a bit too grounded to allow spin-offs. As for prequels, they might be possible. I'm more for in-between movies. Here are two examples.

1. A movie that happens between JP3 and JW, mainly to fill in the holes in the canon.

2. A movie that happens not long after the first park fell.

A Movie during the time of Jurassic World's operation, maybe set on Sorna could be really cool.

Sickle_Claw wrote:

Rhedosaurus wrote:

Troyal1 wrote:

I’d be all for spin off movies and prequels. As long as they make sense.

I think that the JP movieverse is a bit too grounded to allow spin-offs. As for prequels, they might be possible. I'm more for in-between movies. Here are two examples.

1. A movie that happens between JP3 and JW, mainly to fill in the holes in the canon.

2. A movie that happens not long after the first park fell.

A Movie during the time of Jurassic World's operation, maybe set on Sorna could be really cool.

That could have some interesting potential actually, never considered it. It is a restricted area, but maybe Masrani sent men over there secretly or something? Hmmm, that'd be interesting for sure

Nay for me.

Cinematic Universes have made both Star Wars and Marvel.something so common and mundane that they are no longer a special event. (Granted Disney's Star Wars has otger problems also like plot holes, thinga that make no sense and other messy things).

Back in the 1990's and 2000's a Jurassic Park film was an event. Something special because of the 4 years in between. Even if JP3 had a backlash.

Same thing with the Star Wars prequels, 3 years between them made them something special.

Less is more like some say.