UPDATE: Despite this report originating from a print magazine, /Film now reports that Jurassic World 2‘s reported budget is not only inaccurate, but totally fabricated or misprinted. The website claims to have it on the authority of someone close to the porject that a final budget hasn’t yet been decided for the Jurassic World sequel:
“A reliable source in the Jurassic World camp has revealed to us that J.A. Bayona did not reveal the budget for Jurassic World 2. In fact, development hasn’t even reached a point where a budget can be finalized, though our source said that the budget will not be anywhere near $260 million.” —/Film
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Jurassic World 2 is currently on the slate for a summer 2018 release, and is set to begin in shooting in about six months time. The sequel will see a change in director, with The Orphanage helmer J.A. Bayona taking over for Colin Trevorrow (who will be a little busy working on Star Wars: Episode IX).
Bayona has been talking about Jurassic World 2 as of late, and has apparently shared with spanish language magazine El Pais Seminal that the sequel will have a massive budget!
As reported by Scified:
“Notably, Bayona confirmed that the budget for the Jurassic World sequel would be 260 million dollars. This is a massive increase from Jurassic World’s production of 150 million dollars. Bayonne did not give a specified reason for this large budgetary increase.”
The obvious question here is what the drastic increase in budget is for. Jurassic World gave fans a whole wildlife park filled with CGI dinosaurs; dinosaurs and humans working together; coordinated dino mob attacks; and a big dino four-way battle finale to cap it all off. One can only surmise that an extra $110 million dollars would go toward funding and one of (or combination of) these four
- More dinosaurs.
- More time spent with dinosaurs.
- Humans with higher pay rates for sequel.
- Actual investment in characters and story.
That last one is particularly important: if the only thing that an increased budget buys us is a sequel with more spectacle, then this franchise is going even further down the rabbit hole of shallow branding than it already has. The first Jurassic World took a female character like Laura Dern’s brilliant and brave scientist from Jurassic Park and “re-envisioned” the role into something like Claire (Bryce Dalls Howard), the lady who can’t go into the jungle hunting a genetically-engineered super-dino without her high heels on…
With fans now over the hump of re-launching Jurassic Park as a modern reboot, hopefully the filmmakers can relax a bit and spread that money around to allthe places it needs to be invested.
Jurassic World is gearing up for production. It will open in theaters on June 22, 2018.
