'Jurassic World: Rebirth' or recycling? Hollywood's growing reliance on pre-existing IP

Dinosaurs roared back onto the big screens this month. Jurassic World: Rebirth is the fourth film in the Jurassic World series and the seventh in the overall Jurassic Park franchise that began over 30 years ago. The film opened to a global five-day total of $140 million, a respectable start, but lower than that of the franchise’s previous films—Jurassic World (2015) opened to over $208 million in 2015.

Despite a stacked cast consisting of actors like Scarlett Johanssen, Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali, the film taking a new direction under Gareth Edwards ("Godzilla", "The Creator") and being written by David Keopp, who co-wrote Jurassic Park (1993) and its sequel The Lost World (1997), the film received mixed reviews with critics praising the action sequences, the visual scale and the dinosaurs but criticizing the storyline and characters.

But the release of the new Jurassic World movie raises a question film fans have been asking for years—does Hollywood rely too much on pre-existing intellectual property?

With the rise in the number of film franchises in recent years, one can’t help but notice how much Hollywood reuses already successful IPs. In fact, a good portion of today’s blockbusters aren’t entirely original, and are instead adaptations, continuations or expansions of previously told stories and characters.

These IP-driven narratives can broadly be classified into two types:

• Movie-based - Sequels, prequels, or spin-offs of existing films ("Mad Max: Furiosa", "Fast and Furious", "Star Wars")
• Source-based - Adaptations of books ("Harry Potter", "Lord of the Rings", "Dune"), comics (Marvel Cinematic Universe, "The Boys"), video games ("Fallout", "Uncharted)" or even toy lines ("Barbie", "The Lego Movie", "Transformers").

Hollywood leaning on adaptations and IP is not new — movies like The Godfather, The Shawshank Redemption and Gone with the Wind were books first — but today’s level is unprecedented. The modern film industry is almost built around cinematic universes and larger brand strategies.

It’s important to note that adaptations and sequels aren’t inherently bad. It is a wonderful way to expand the lore of a universe, improve world-building, take a walk down nostalgia lane and introduce stories to younger fans. When a highly anticipated film is released, it often becomes a shared cultural event, something which fans can take part in and bond over. It provides a new sensory format for fans of the original work to experience and immerse themselves in. It’s a unique experience to see how a filmmaker interprets the world and the story-to-life on screen.

However, the main criticism is the over-saturation of such films in the industry and the lack of original movies being released. Critics argue that Hollywood is being “lazy”, churning out IP-based films for a quick cash grab, and they’re not entirely wrong either.

Last year, the 10 most grossing films were all sequels ("Inside Out 2", "Deadpool and Wolverine", "Despicable Me 4"), making it the first time that no original movies made it to the top 10 list. If you were to expand the search and look at the top 20 films of the same year, only two movies ("The Wild Robot" and "It Ends with Us") were not direct sequels.

Nevertheless, both movies were adaptations of existing novels.

The biggest example of this could be the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The shared universe of movies has generated a revenue of $28 billion and spawned a variety of theme parks, toys and other merchandise. By contrast, standalone hits like Get Out or Lady Bird received critical acclaim and proved there is an appetite for original films, but they rarely exceed the mid-three-hundreds in the global box office.

Between 2020 and 2024, only about 12 per cent of new shows and movies were based on pre-existing IP, according to Parrot Analytics. Despite this, 13 of the 30 most-watched titles on streaming (licensed series, original series and movies) in the U.S. in 2024 were based on pre-existing material (according to Nielsen). This shows a disproportionality between the amount of content produced based on pre-existing intellectual property (IP) and the popularity or viewership of such content.

 

ALSO READ: 'Jurassic World: Rebirth' review: Gareth Edwards brings back the goodness and grace of the Spielberg films

 

This says a lot about the psychology of the general audience. While studios are producing a lot of original material, audiences still heavily favour content rooted in familiar worlds, characters, or stories. Relatability and familiarity drive sales.  The risk for success is low, with more audiences flocking into the theatre to check the movie out, audiences who might have been fans or heard about the source material or the previous movie. IP-based content benefits from immediate brand recognition, which in itself is pretty substantial marketing. There also exists a confirmation bias in the minds of the audience when they see such movies. They are looking to confirm their present positive emotions and feelings regarding the world and characters of the franchise. There is a reduced cognitive load when consuming such movies.

So, at the end of the day, it really is a numbers game. The higher the IP, the more the footfalls; the more the footfalls, the more the profit. And profit is what big studios look for. If audiences continue to spend money on brands they recognise, studios will probably pump out more of such films.

Theatrical revenue has taken a big hit due to the rise of streaming. The global box office in 2024 was $32 billion, down from $41 billion in 2019. Jurassic Park’s dinosaurs still pack theatres, although the relatively low opening numbers suggest audience fatigue.

However, this could be related to the quality of the movie rather than fatigue towards IP-related movies in general. Studios must still make good movies. They can’t rely on the brand only for something to become successful. The latest Indiana Jones movie and several newer superhero movies prove this. Studios are getting lazy—in their attempt to make money, they are neglecting the one thing the audience wants most—a good film.

Studios should learn to strike a balance between making a creatively focused film and delivering fan service. When using IP, they must try to reimagine the title rather than just recycling it, prioritising storytelling over formula, vision over repetition. Because audience fatigue is a real thing. People are growing tired of the same old formula, and without fresh ideas, any brand can start to feel stale.

But the industry is not devoid of original ideas. Films like Nope, Oppenheimer and The Menu prove that audiences will show up for originality—when it's smartly crafted, bold and marketed well.

The future of cinema doesn’t have to be a binary choice between familiarity and originality—it can be both. Studios must evolve not just their dinosaurs but also their creative strategies, because in a world where everything old is turning new again, the truly revolutionary act might just be telling a story we haven’t heard yet.

Entertainment