A billion-dollar behemoth that changed cinema forever devours the streaming competition

James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgement Day may have ushered in the CGI revolution and set the standard for blockbuster escapism, but it was the release of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park two years later that stomped along and kicked the doors clean off their hinges.

A seamless blend of practical and visual effects that still holds up incredibly for a movie that turns 30 years old in a matter of months, the big budget extravaganza took a bigger bite out of the box office than any other film in history at the time, and 20 years later it finally cracked the billion-dollar threshold to rank as the oldest feature to join the coveted ten-figure club.

In short; there is cinema before Jurassic Park, and there is cinema after Jurassic Park. Spielberg’s spectacular adventure is a near-perfect storm of pacing, atmosphere, performances, humor, terror, and outright fun, and it wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to call it one of the greatest big budget productions the artform will ever see for as long as it exists.

It also launched a franchise that’s racked up a cumulative box office haul north of $6 billion, and you can tell Jurassic Park is a monumental achievement in filmmaking when no less of an authority than Stanley Kubrick admitted it gave him the kick up the ass needed to restart development on his passion project A.I Artificial Intelligence – which of course ended up being helmed by Spielberg.

In another welcome turn of events, fans seem to be ignoring the dismal Dominion in favor of the OG, with Jurassic Park rocketing up the streaming ranks this week. Per FlixPatrol, the all-time classic has returned with a vengeance to take up residency on the Top 10 in no less 16 countries across the iTunes and Rakuten charts, and it’s a deserved return to prominence.