Jurassic Park (1993 film) Steven Spielberg

Box office

Jurassic Park became the highest-grossing film released worldwide up to that time, replacing Spielberg's own E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).[151] It grossed $3.1 million from Thursday night screenings in the United States and Canada on June 10, and $50.1 million in its first weekend from 2,404 theaters, breaking the opening weekend record set by Batman Returns the year before.[113] The film would hold that record for two years until 1995 when Batman Forever took it.[152] Upon opening, it became the first film to generate $50 million in a single weekend.[153] By the end of its first week, Jurassic Park had grossed a record $81.7 million.[154] It grossed $100 million in a record nine days[155] and remained at number one for three weeks. It eventually grossed $357 million in the U.S. and Canada, ranking second of all-time behind E.T.[156][157] Box Office Mojo estimates the film sold over 86.2 million tickets in the US in its initial theatrical run.[158]

The film also did very well in international markets and was the first to gross $500 million overseas, surpassing the record $280 million overseas gross of E.T.[159][160] In its first international release date in Brazil, it also set an opening weekend record with a gross of $1,738,198 from 141 screens.[155] It went on to break further opening records around the world including in the United Kingdom, Japan, India, South Korea, Mexico, Germany, Australia, Taiwan, Italy, Denmark, South Africa and France.[161][162][163][164] In Japan, Jurassic Park grossed $8.4 million from 237 screens in two days (including previews).[161] In the United Kingdom, it also beat the opening weekend record set by Batman Returns with a gross of £4.875 million ($7.4 million) from 434 screens, including a record £443,000 from Thursday night previews, and also beat Terminator 2: Judgment Day's opening week record, with £9.2 million.[161][165][166][167] The film held the UK record until it was beaten by Independence Day in 1996.[168] After 12 days of grossing over £1 million a day, the film was the eighth highest-grossing film of all time in the UK[169] and after just three weeks, it became the highest-grossing, surpassing Ghost, eventually doubling the record with a gross of £47.9 million.[170][171] It spent a record eight consecutive weekends at the top of the UK box office.[172] Jurassic Park would remain as Europe's box office leader before being surpassed by Aladdin.[173] In Australia, the film had the widest release ever and was the first film to open with a one-day gross of more than A$1 million, grossing A$5,447,000 (US$3.6 million) in its first four days from 192 screens beating the opening record of Terminator 2 and also beating the weekly record set by The Bodyguard with a gross of A$6.8 million.[174][175][162] In the same weekend, it also set an opening record in Germany with a gross of DM 16.8 million ($10.5 million) from 644 screens.[162][174] In Italy, it also had the widest release ever in 344 theaters and grossed a record Lire 9.5 billion ($6.1 million).[163] After 115 days of release, it surpassed E.T. as the highest-grossing film worldwide of all time.[176] It eventually opened in France on October 20, 1993, and grossed a record 75 million F ($13 million) in its opening week from over 515 screens.[177][164] Its first week admissions in France of almost 2.3 million surpassed the previous record set by Rambo: First Blood Part II in 1985.[178]

The film set all-time records in, among others, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Japan (in US Dollars), Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Thailand and the United Kingdom.[116][179][180][160][181][182] Ultimately the film grossed $914 million worldwide in its initial release,[5] with Spielberg reportedly earning over $250 million from the film, the most a director or actor had earned from one film at the time.[183][116] Its record gross was surpassed in 1998 by Titanic, the first film to gross over $1 billion.[184]

The 3D re-release of Jurassic Park in April 2013 opened at fourth place at the US box office, with $18.6 million from 2,771 locations. IMAX showings accounted for over $6 million, with the 32 percent being the highest IMAX share ever for a nationwide release.[185] The international release had its most successful weekend in the last week of August, when it managed to climb to the top of the overseas box office with a $28.8 million debut in China.[186] The reissue earned $45.4 million in the United States and Canada and $44.5 million internationally as of August 2013,[187] leading to a lifetime gross of $402.5 million in the United States and Canada and $628.7 million overseas, for a worldwide gross of $1.029 billion, making Jurassic Park the 17th film to surpass the $1 billion mark.[188] It was the only Universal Pictures film to surpass the $1 billion mark until 2015, when the studio had three such films, Furious 7, Minions, and the fourth installment of the Jurassic Park franchise, Jurassic World.[189] The film earned an additional $374,238 in 2018 for its 25th anniversary re-release.[190] In June 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic closing most theaters worldwide and limiting what films played, Jurassic Park returned to 230 theaters (mostly drive-ins). It grossed $517,600, finishing in first for the fourth time in its history. It became the first time a re-issue topped the box office since The Lion King in September 2011.[191] It currently ranks as the 37th highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S. and Canada (not adjusted for inflation) and the 44th highest-grossing film of all time.[2]

Critical response

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively reported an approval rating of 92% based on 142 reviews, with an average rating of 8.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Jurassic Park is a spectacle of special effects and lifelike animatronics, with some of Spielberg's best sequences of sustained awe and sheer terror since Jaws".[192] Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on reviews from 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[193] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[194]

Janet Maslin of The New York Times called it "a true movie milestone, presenting awe- and fear-inspiring sights never before seen on the screen [...] On paper, this story is tailor-made for Mr. Spielberg's talents [but] [i]t becomes less crisp on screen than it was on the page, with much of the enjoyable jargon either mumbled confusingly or otherwise thrown away".[195] In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers called the film "colossal entertainment—the eye-popping, mind-bending, kick-out-the-jams thrill ride of summer and probably the year [...] Compared with the dinos, the characters are dry bones, indeed. Crichton and co-screenwriter David Koepp have flattened them into nonentities on the trip from page to screen".[196] Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four: "The movie delivers all too well on its promise to show us dinosaurs. We see them early and often, and they are indeed a triumph of special effects artistry, but the movie is lacking other qualities that it needs even more, such as a sense of awe and wonderment, and strong human story values".[197] Henry Sheehan of Sight & Sound argued: "The complaints over Jurassic Park's lack of story and character sound a little off the point", pointing out the story arc of Grant learning to protect Hammond's grandchildren despite his initial dislike of them.[30] Empire magazine gave the film five stars, calling it "quite simply one of the greatest blockbusters of all time".[198]

Accolades

In March 1994, Jurassic Park won all three Academy Awards for which it was nominated: Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects (at the same ceremony, Spielberg, editor Michael Kahn, and composer John Williams won Academy Awards for Schindler's List).[199] The film won honors outside the U.S. including the 1994 BAFTA for Best Special Effects, as well as the Award for the Public's Favorite Film.[200] It won the 1994 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation,[201] and the 1993 Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Direction, Best Writing for Crichton and Koepp and Best Special Effects.[202] The film won the 1993 People's Choice Awards for Favorite All-Around Motion Picture.[203] Young Artist Awards were given to Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello, with the film winning an Outstanding Action/Adventure Family Motion Picture award.[204] In 2001, the American Film Institute ranked Jurassic Park as the 35th most thrilling film of American cinema.[205] The film is included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die,[206] film lists by Empire magazine,[207] and The Guardian.[208]