Believe it or not, there’s no rule that dictates that every single marketable franchise in Hollywood needs to be spun off in multiple directions and tied together to form an overarching shared universe, despite the apparent insistence by almost every major outfit that it has to at least be attempted.
Kevin Feige has certainly got a lot to answer for having completely changed the face of blockbuster cinema following the release of Iron Man in the summer of 2008, and you can guarantee that there are going to be even more envious execs across town looking at how the Marvel Cinematic Universe is now expanding into episodic storytelling while still retaining the essence of its big screen adventures.
The latest addition to the rumor mill is the “exclusive” from Giant Freakin Robot that Universal are planning a Jurassic shared universe, although that’s the extent of the information made available. It’s a vague statement that could realistically be applied to almost any profitable brand in the industry, and in fact, GFR very recently intimated that the same would be happening to James Bond on Amazon without offering any more details in that instance, either.
However, it’s also pretty old news when you consider that Netflix’s animated Camp Cretaceous is considered official canon and a direct expansion of the mythology, while Amblin Television’s Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey were announced to be in the early stages of developing a live-action TV series set in the same continuity as the movies over a year ago with Steven Spielberg and Colin Trevorrow attached as executive producers. Trevorrow’s Jurassic World: Dominion may be tying up the second trilogy with a definitive conclusion, but there’s no chance that Universal will have any intentions of letting their second-biggest franchise behind Fast & Furious fade away.
