“Jurassic World: Dominion” has been delayed a year to June 10, 2022, Universal announced on Tuesday.
The move comes as filming on the third “Jurassic World” film — and sixth overall in the dinosaur franchise — is nearing completion in England after the COVID-19 pandemic forced shooting to pause for several months. The film sees the “Jurassic World” cast, led by Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, team up with the original “Jurassic Park” cast, including Laura Dern, Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum and B.D. Wong.
“Dominion” joins MGM’s “No Time to Die,” Warner Bros.’ “Dune,” and the entire slate of DC films among those that have been pushed back by the COVID-19 pandemic. Studio sources tell TheWrap that while Universal is satisfied with the pace of production on the film despite pandemic delays, the studio chose to push back the film a year in order to put its marketing team in a better position to prepare media placement and tie-in marketing campaigns that need to be in place well in advance of a tentpole blockbuster’s release.
Alongside the “Fast & Furious” series, “Jurassic World” has become one of Universal’s most lucrative blockbuster franchises. The last two films in the series, released in 2015 and 2018, combined to gross just shy of $3 billion at the global box office with the first “Jurassic World” standing as Universal’s highest grossing film ever. As with the original “Jurassic Park” trilogy, the franchise has also spawned a wide array of ancillary revenue streams for the studio, from toys to theme park rides to a new Netflix animated series.
Along with the release date change, Universal released a new teaser poster for the film, featuring the entire cast and the iconic “Jurassic” logo encased in amber. While the pandemic is likely to force more release slate changes in the coming weeks and months, “Dominion” is now set to be the top release in June 2022 as “The Flash,” originally slated to release that month, was pushed back to November 2022 as part of Warner Bros.’ slate-wide changes for DC films. Warner still has June 3, 2022 earmarked for an event film release, while Disney plans to release a yet-to-be-announced Pixar film that month.
