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Dinosaurs eating people = $$$.

BOP has delivered variations of this joke for 15 years now, and it keeps proving to be true. People love the idea of watching Hollywood actors walk into the gaping maws of toothy beasts dripping saliva as they anticipate a mammal snack. And we especially love dinosaurs since they’re large, aggressive throwbacks to the days when nobody received a participation trophy. Anything out in the wild that wound up in a fight with T-Rex could win only one trophy: survival.

The primal elements of the concept have driven the Jurassic Park franchise to unprecedented heights, starting in 1993. Less than three years after the release of Michael Crichton’s wildly popular novel of the same name, Jurassic Park did the seemingly impossible. The cinematic adaptation of the book bested Batman Returns to break the record for largest opening weekend of all-time. Of course, in 1993, that only meant a three-day tally of $50.2 million; even adjusting for 23 years of box office inflation, that’s still “only” $104.4 million.

So, there are two primary takeaways from the Jurassic Park production. One is that customers will pay good money to see cool dinosaurs wreck humanity. The other is that Jurassic World stands apart, above and beyond the prior entries Jurassic Park franchise.

Here are a couple of other data points if you question the second argument above. The Lost World: Jurassic Park debuted four years later in 1997. It too broke the opening weekend record. Humorously, the film it beat once again came from the Batman franchise. Batman Forever reclaimed the title in 1995, edging Jurassic Park’s standing record by $2.6 million. Box office analysts of the era expected The Lost World to beat that number, but what happened next was truly astonishing.

The Jurassic Park sequel opened to $72.1 million in three days and $92.6 million in four days, making it the best Memorial Day performer for many years to come. The three-day opening weekend tally stood for four long years, eventually ending with the release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. It was arguably the most dominant box office performance of the 1990s.

Even the ballyhooed release of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace the following year failed to match The Lost World on opening weekend. Despite all the impressive statistics about the debut of The Lost World, however, its three-day total still “only” inflation adjusts to $135.9 million. You should be starting to appreciate just how shocking Jurassic World’s debut was.

The buzz for the fourth Jurassic Park movie started early. Equal parts nostalgia-based and forward-thinking, the teaser hinted at the fulfillment of a long-standing promise. The start of the film franchise teased the audience with the possibility of a fully functioning theme park highlighted by interactions with dinosaurs. It was this tantalizing proposition that attracted a massive amount of movie-goers in the first place.

For whatever reason, the sequels moved further and further away from this concept. The Lost World: Jurassic Park instead focused on the aftermath of the initial park disaster. It told the story of dinosaurs abandoned on Isla Sorna and how they reacted when mankind accidentally provided convenient transportation back to civilization. Basically, Universal Pictures ceded on the opportunity to advance the story in favor of wanton destruction in San Diego.

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