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The End Of Oak Street's Box Office Proves One Thing About Dinosaur Movies

By Ryan Scott

Aug. 17, 2026 7:00 pm EST

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. had a stellar year in 2025, taking chances on original movies such as "Sinners" and "Weapons" with outstanding results both critically and commercially. Similarly, the studio has taken some big swings in 2026, the latest being "The End of Oak Street." The rare original, non-"Jurassic Park" dinosaur movie to hit theaters, it seemed like it had a lot of the right pieces in place. Unfortunately, it didn't exactly pan out.

Directed by David Robert Mitchell ("It Follows"), "The End of Oak Street" made $21 million domestically, coming in at number three on the charts behind "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" ($71 million) and "The Odyssey" ($23.2 million). Ultimately, it debuted below expectations as part of a dinosaur box office battle with "Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie," which opened to $20.5 million. Internationally, Mitchell's film took in $26 million for a $47 million global debut against a budget of at least $80 million.

The movie takes place after a mysterious cosmic event rips Oak Street from suburbia and transports their neighborhood to the distant dinosaur-filled past. As such, the Platt family at the center of the action discovers that their survival depends on them sticking together as they navigate their perilous surroundings. Anne Hathaway ("The Devil Wears Prada 2") and Ewan McGregor ("Obi-Wan Kenobi") lead the cast.

"The End of Oak Street" was met with positive reviews (including from /Film) and counts J.J. Abrams ("Star Wars: The Force Awakens") as a producer. It had a lot going for it and yet, it couldn't deliver meaningful ticket sales, and it's likely going to go down as a pretty major financial disappointment. This all but confirms that dinosaur movies not connected to the "Jurassic" franchise have an almost impossible time cutting the mustard at the box office.

The End of Oak Street is the latest dinosaur movie to disappoint in theaters

Warner Bros.

The "Jurassic Park" movies had made $6 billion at the box office collectively even before last year's "Jurassic World Rebirth" unassumingly became a massive hit, pulling in another $869 million worldwide. This franchise has simply dominated the conversation in terms of dinosaur cinema ever since Steven Spielberg's original, groundbreaking blockbuster "Jurassic Park" made its way to theaters in 1993.

Dinosaurs, however, are not owned IP, so it's frankly surprising that studios don't more regularly try to make movies centered on prehistoric creatures in an attempt to chase commercial success. One can head to Tubi any day of the week and find any number of ultra-low-budget dino movie schlock, but in terms of studio-produced fare? It's relatively few and far between. And when it does happen, it tends not to work out.

In the 2020s, we've only seen a few live-action, non-"Jurassic" dinosaur movies released theatrically. Adam Driver's "65" got buried at the box office in 2023, taking in just shy of $61 million worldwide on a reported $45 million budget. Now, even with decent legs, "The End of Oak Street" will struggle to break even and is going to go down as yet another under-performer within the genre.

One of the only semi-meaningful success stories was last year's "Primitive War." Directed by Luke Sparke, the Vietnam War-set, low-budget movie based on Ethan Pettus' novel of the same name became something of a viral sensation. It made some money in theaters, but it was more of a word-of-mouth/streaming hit than a theatrical one. "Primitive War" has multiple potential sequels in the works, which speaks to its success. At the same time, it's not the kind of success that big Hollywood studios are going to chase.

Why can't non-Jurassic Park dinosaur movies have success at the box office?

Warner Bros.

In terms of dino movies that have succeeded outside of "Jurassic Park"/"Jurassic World," it's largely been animated, kid-friendly films. See again, "Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie," which is going to move a lot of merch and make some money for Paramount thanks to its thrifty budget. There's also "The Land Before Time," which was a big hit and led to a franchise that refused to go extinct. But even then, the success stories have been few and far between.

So, why do movies outside of the "Jurassic Park" franchise have such a hard time? Honestly, that property has seemingly cornered the market. Everything else has to live in its shadow and will be compared to it, for better or worse. It does feel like there is room for more within the sub-genre, but studios have, thus far, had an exceedingly tough time cracking the code.

The "Jurassic World Rebirth" sequel recently lost director Gareth Edwards. It remains to be seen who is going to step into his shoes, but Universal Pictures is dead set on keeping this money train moving. So, in a couple of years, this franchise will likely have another hit on its hands. Either that or it will become the next "Jurassic Park III" and result in the franchise going dormant for a while, in the worst-case scenario.

In that somewhat unlikely event, there might be room for another dinosaur movie to enter the arena. But it's been made pretty clear that the bar for the average moviegoer to get off the couch for a non-"Jurassic" big screen dino adventure is high. What will it take to clear that bar in the future? Time will tell.

"The End of Oak Street" is in theaters now.