‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ Is Now on Peacock. How Did It Outgross Every Superhero Movie of 2025?

In a year where superhero movies, family-friendly cartoons, and star vehicles alike have underperformed at the box office, you can almost feel the panic as studios wonder what the hell audiences will pay to see in theaters these days apart from the odd cultural phenom imported from other media (Wicked; Minecraft; to some extent, Superman), recited from a pre-existing screenplay (Lilo & Stitch), or occasionally created whole-cloth, preferably in the horror genre (Sinners; Weapons). Universal’s surprising answer is just now hitting Peacock after a very successful theatrical run: Audiences would like to see Jurassic Park movies. Pretty much regardless of the circumstances.

It’s not that Jurassic World Rebirth truly represents “any” circumstances. It’s not a bottom-of-the-barrel last gasp of the franchise, though some critics definitely reacted that way last summer. It’s just a pretty solid monster movie, shot on old-fashioned 35mm film, with strong visual effects well-integrated into its big-budget location work, suspenseful but not unbearably terrifying set pieces (my then-nine-year-old had a nice time), and even some movie stars: Scarlett Johansson and Oscar winner Mahershala Ali. It’s easy to imagine them clinking glasses over starring in a movie that handily outgrossed all of the 2025 offerings from Marvel Studios, the company that Johansson had to sue for Black Widow money and has been bumbling its way through an Ali-starring Blade remake that was announced years ago and will probably never happens.

It is strange, though, because it would be hard to argue that the well-crafted Rebirth is offering anything particularly fresh to the Jurassic formula. In fact, it seems like a textbook case of a franchise accidentally explaining its limitations. In the wake of an ambitious but scattered Jurassic World reboot trilogy (quick recap: huge smash return in 2015; interestingly strange 2018 sequel; compellingly messy and stupid 2022 finale that was also apparently one of the most expensive movies ever made), Rebirth follows up a series of hit movies by tacitly promising that it won’t be too much like those other movies (which themselves were hobbled by frequent references to the original films). This quickly-assembled Garth Edwards stand-alone sequel pulls back on the number of dinos (rather than coexisting with humans around the world, they’ve mostly been put back on a series of equatorial islands with friendlier climates, or just died out) and goes “back to basics,” except the basics aren’t actually Spielberg-directed movies but the perfectly competent and semi-forgettable Jurassic Park III.

That movie featured a bunch of randos, guided by original cast member Sam Neill, on a jungle rescue mission, retrieving a lost kid. This new one features a bunch of randos, guided by world-famous movie star Scarlett Johansson, on a jungle mission that eventually includes retrieving a lost kid. You can see why some critics blanched or sighed; it’s essentially an admission that there’s only a few different ways to make a big dinosaur movie, and they were mostly figured out in the first decade of the film series’ existence.

This isn’t true, obviously; there are tons of ways to make an original dino-centric movie. But maybe Rebirth is trying to explain that a Jurassic Park/World movie is a different and perhaps more narrow enterprise than we’d prefer to imagine. These are not vehicles of boundless imagination. Hell, even the very first Jurassic Park was about trying to contain the near-magical wonders of nature and science, then watching as they busted out of their constraints – but also never really threatened to maul anyone but those visiting a remote jungle island. On top of which, the whole thing was based on a popular pre-existing novel, brought to screen by the director of the much more character-driven creature feature Jaws. Cheap thrills may be in the series’ DNA.

I’m not saying you have to check your brain at the door to enjoy a Jurassic World sequel, and expecting anything more is a fool’s errand. I am saying, though, that Universal Pictures has been making movies about monsters and creatures for nearly 100 years at this point, and complaining about Jurassic World Rebirth’s meagerness of imagination is sort of like carping about Dracula’s Daughter or House of Frankenstein; yes, there are genuine classics you can compare them to, but is that really what the seventh Jurassic Park movie is going for? For that matter, seven Jurassic movies over the course of 32 years is actually pretty restrained by today’s standards. Of course, four of them have come out in the past decade, but still. ScarJo alone did more Marvel movies over the same period. Hell, there are more Conjuring-verse movies from the past decade than Jurassic Worlds. That must at least partially contribute to Rebirth making $860 million worldwide while barely breaking a sweat. That’s actually the lowest global gross since – yes – Jurassic Park III, but considering that the entire sell of the movie was basically “ScarJo and dinos!” and there wasn’t room for it to go out on IMAX screens, that seems like a sign that people just like going to these silly movies for a good time, even if it’s not a Wicked-sized event.

Maybe at home, away from the fun of seeing an effects movie on a giant screen with the air conditioning blasting, Jurassic World Rebirth will diminish accordingly. But that’s almost part of the Jurassic brand’s strength: No one really expects these movies to play awesome at home. (Countless people will see them that way, but they make an implicit argument for the big screen.) They’re something to watch on any number of non-special occasions that don’t require advance ticket purchases, cosplay, or kids throwing popcorn because of memes. Somehow, these effects-packed blockbusters have been the unlikely last flag flying for regular movies of a mostly-bygone era.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.

Stream Jurassic World Rebirth on Peacock