Jurassic World: Dominion has already begun its international rollout and is set to open in theaters in the United States on June 12, 2022. Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow returns to the franchise in what is being billed as the end of the Jurassic era, as it is set to conclude the storyline of not just the Jurassic World trilogy but also the original three Jurassic Park films. Jurassic World: Dominion will unite Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) with the lead characters from the original film including Alan Grant (Sam Neil), Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) in what is predicted to be one of the biggest movies of summer 2022.

Yet the original plan was for Jurassic World: Dominion to be one of the biggest movies of summer 2021, but the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything, and Jurassic World: Dominion was just one in a long list of films impacted. The road to getting Jurassic World: Dominion to the big screen was a long one for the cast and crew, and the film saw a number of issues arise from the pandemic. Here are the delays and major impacts COVID-19 had on the production of Jurassic World: Dominion.

The Jurassic Franchise Release Pattern

Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, Sam Neill in Jurassic World Dominion
Universal Pictures

The original wait pattern between the Jurassic Park films was four years, as the first film opened in June 1993, The Lost World: Jurassic Park was released in 1997 and finally, Jurassic Park 3 was released in 2001. Following the critical and box office disappointment of Jurassic Park 3, the franchise would stay out of theaters for over 14 years until the release of Jurassic World in 2015. Following that film's massive success, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was released in 2018, three years after its predecessor.

Related: How Jurassic World Dominion May Live Up to the Original’s Legacy

Unlike Star Wars, which had its first six films all released in May, the Jurassic Park franchise never had a set month audiences could associate it with, other than being a summer movie franchise. Jurassic Park was released in June, The Lost World: Jurassic Park broke Memorial Day weekend records when it opened, and Jurassic Park 3 was released in July. Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom returned the franchise to June, one that Jurassic World: Dominion intends to keep going.

Jurassic World: Dominion Original Release Date

T-Rex terrorizes a drive-in in Jurassic World 3
Universal Pictures

In keeping with the three-year wait between Jurassic World entries and the June release date, Jurassic World: Dominion was originally set to open in theaters on June 11, 2021. That June weekend was particularly special as it was the same weekend that Jurassic World was released and went on to become the biggest opening weekend at the time. It also would have been released 28 years to the date of the first Jurassic Park's opening.

Filming began in February 2020 but was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and did not resume for four months and picked back up in July 2020. Universal rented out an entire hotel for the cast and crew to quarantine in and provided a safe bubble for the production. Universal Pictures was estimated to have spent $9 million on various COVID-19 safety protocols, and cast and crew members were tested three times a week. COVID-19 protocols also kept Jake Johnson, who played Lowery Cruthers in Jurassic World, from returning to the film.

Even with all these precautions in place, In August four crew members tested positive for COVID-19 filming in England while four more tested positive filming in Malta. Filming was then halted in October 2020 after several people tested positive for COVID-19, and while they later tested negative COVID-19 protocols still required two-week quarantine periods. Filming officially wrapped on November 7, 2020, after 100 days of filming and 40,000 COVID-19 tests.

Jurassic World: Dominion Delayed A Whole Year

Giga Jurassic World Dominion
Universal Pictures
Empire

With Jurassic World: Dominion only finishing filming eight months before its projected release date, a large number of visual effects work needing to be done on the film, as well as the uncertainty of if audiences would feel safe returning to movie theaters, Universal decided to delay the release of Jurassic World: Dominion.

The studio already had F9, the latest entry in their popular Fast & Furious franchise, opening in the summer of 2021, so they could afford to delay Jurassic World: Dominion (and also this way they would not risk two of their major franchises' box office being impacted by COVID-19). In October 2020, just a month before filming wrapped on Jurassic World: Dominion, Universal Pictures announced they would delay the film a whole year, setting the release date for June 10, 2022. While it did miss the three-year gap between Jurassic World entries, fittingly it keeps the four-year gap that the Jurassic Park trilogy was known for.

Related: Jurassic World Dominion: What Dinos Can We Expect to See?

Despite more COVID-19 delays to other films and some studios opting to send their films to streaming, this was the last delay for Jurassic World: Dominion. Alongside Minions: The Rise of Gru (another film long-delayed by COVID-19) and Jordan Peele's Nope, Jurassic World: Dominion is positioned as one of Universal Pictures' big summer tent pole films and is projected it could overtake Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as the biggest opening weekend of 2022.

What Comes Next For This Jurassic Franchise?

Chris Pratt and a dinosaur in Jurassic World Dominion
Universal Pictures

While Jurassic World: Dominion is billed as the grand finale to the story that began in 1993, it might not be the end of the franchise. In the years between Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World: Dominion, Universal expanded the franchise with the Netflix animated series Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous, the first series based on the property, which premiered in 2020 and will air its fifth and final season on July 21, 2022, just one month after Jurassic World: Dominion opens in theaters. While aimed at younger audiences, it was able to tide fans of the franchise over during the year-long delay to Jurassic World: Dominion and hinted that the franchise's future may move beyond the big screen.

Producer Frank Marshall has hinted that Jurassic World: Dominion might mark the end of this chapter in the franchise but has not ruled out the possibility of future films. Will the series wait three years for the next film to arrive in 2025? A four-year wait would be 2026, or it could take a long hiatus. With the franchise having generated $5 billion at the worldwide box office, the larger merchandising arm of the franchise still being popular, and the fact that multiple Universal Studios theme parks across the world have Jurassic Park and Jurassic World attractions, it feels like it is not a matter of if the franchise will return but when.