Jurassic June and the future of the Franchise

It is now less then a week to the day that Jurassic World first had its world premiere in Los Angeles. Jurassic World will be a year old, after the 14 year long wait of hype and excitement. Now of course, there recently began a new cycle of anticipation as news related to Jurassic World's sequel slowly trickles out.The excitement has begun again, as we celebrate Jurassic June once again, and celebrate the anniversary of the long awaited fourth film.

However, as the wait for the fifth Jurassic Park film continues, the fandom has looked for other means of continuing their support for the franchise. In the absence of news, this has primarily meant a focus on merchandise. This article intends to summarize the choices currently available as well as speculate on what could be done to improve the Jurassic Park franchise to keep it alive for the period until the new film.

As the Jurassic World toy line currently dwindles from stores, the Jurassic World hybrids line will continue in the fall with several new items for collectors. Shuco and Matchbox are both currently coming out with high quality car replicas for collectors. Lastly, Chronicle Collectibles is continuing a line of high quality Jurassic Park statues for the high-end collector.

This merchandising campaign will help sustain the fandom for the next few years, however it could always be supplemented. Jurassic World made 1.6 billion dollars last year, becoming the number one movie in the world. This brought the franchise back into public consciousness in a manner that no other previous revival method did, including past efforts at merchandising.

Now with a successful new entry into the franchise, Universal has an opportunity here to rebuild its previous efforts at expanding the Jurassic Franchise. Before Jurassic World, Universal released three Jurassic  Park comic series under the IDW imprint, while they received mixed reviews this may have been in part due to the storyline as well as they did not have anticipation of a new film to carry them.

However, Jurassic World's success means that there is the impetus that may be needed to make a comic series viable again. A possible comic series does not need to be set in between Jurassic World and its sequel, it could focus on the operation of the park during its ten year span of operations. There would be plenty of stories to be told that would not hinder possible plans for a sequel by infringing upon future plot points. The backstories of such characters as Owen Grady or Claire Dearing could even be touched upon in such a comic series, or even a day in the life of a specific character. A comic series could even spinoff of how Jurassic World has engendered corporate rivals such as Biosyn to try to catch up to InGen. There is room in the Jurassic Park universe for these stories to be told.

Another option for the franchise to be expanded on is a Jurassic Park television show. Such a show's high production costs would make it a suitable candidate for Netflix. While in the past there have been two attempts at animated series and neither was made, the success of Jurassic World could make it a financially viable proposition.

The Ceo of Comcast recently utilized Jurassic World as an example when describing possible Universal franchises that would be suitable for a cartoon adaption. This adaption would be focused on children, and the fact that a kids show is being talked about does make the prospect of a live action show remote, especially one geared to adults. Such a show would likely be CGI and on Netflix. It would also likely be a soft PG in tone. I would hypothesize possible subjects for this show could be the taming of Nublar after the Jurassic Park incident as well as the day to day operations of Jurassic World. It would really assist in helping to keep the franchise in the public mind.

There is also the possibility of a Jurassic World video game.  Such a video game was in development before the movie came out but was cancelled. This game would have been a MMO. However although there are still unconfirmed rumors about the project resuming development (via Jurassic Outpost), it is still far from confirmed without a acknowledgement by the developer. 

A MMO would be a very thorough Jurassic experience, but such a Jurassic game would likely be 'freemium' as in ostensibly free to play but with payment required for any real progress on the game. Dinosaur and prehistoric related games such as Ark: Survival Evolved and Far Cry Primal however have successfully managed to grow fanbases and a Jurassic World game could easily emulate their structure.

I imagine my ideal Jurassic World game to be for a modern console, perhaps a PS4 exclusive. The game mechanics would be heavily influenced by Uncharted as well as Tomb Raider. The game would be open world similar to Far Cry, and the player would have the ability to fully traverse and explore either Isla Sorna or Isla Nublar as one of the iconic characters from the movie. With a top developer such as Naughty Dog or Crystal dynamics, the graphics and playability could distinguish it from being a normal license game to a top tier playing experience. 

I believe that with these initiatives, the Jurassic Franchise will be able to thrive and sustain the fandom until the release of the fifth Jurassic World movie. Any one of these would be a great asset to the community, and greatly boost general audience awareness of the upcoming film. Let us know in the comments what your idea Jurassic addition to the franchise would be!

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