You may think that Avatar or Avengers: Endgame holds the record for being the most expensive film of all time, but you’d be wrong.
An emerging report has combined all the costs of Hollywood’s most lucrative films, and found that there’s a new victor in town – surpassing the previous number one, 2017’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which had a gross budget of £638.9m (£483m), and number two, 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, whose budget sat at $593.7m (£448.9).
According to Fortune, the movie that earns the title of being Hollywood’s most costly is, in fact, a Jurassic World film – namely, the third in the franchise, Jurassic World: Dominion (2022). The sequel brought back (and squandered) original Jurassic Park stars Sam Neil, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum to reprise their iconic roles from the original Jurassic Park franchise.
These findings pitched Jurassic World: Dominion’s gross budget at a whopping $658.8m (£498m).
The film, which received a deserved mauling by critics, is set in a world where dinosaurs co-exist with humans, and follows the lead characters as they work to expose a conspiracy covered up by genomics corporation Biosyn.
It made $1bn (£756m) at the box office – down from the $1.671bn (£1.25bn) and $1.3bn (£983m) of the first two films, Jurassic World (2015) and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018). The film also starred Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, DeWanda Wise and Omar Sy.
Due to diminishing returns, a fourth Jurassic World film, Jurassic World: Rebirth, costing $254m (£192m), was released in 2025. It made $872.4m (£659.6m) at the box office. It ditched original stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard for a cast including Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali.
Avatar sequels The Way of Water and Fire and Ash, sit outside the top 10, cumulatively costing $860m (£650m), while Avengers: Age of Ultron and Endgame (2019) sit at eight and ninth, with $495.2m (£374.4m) and $400m (£302.4m), respectively.
Rounding out the top 10 are Deadpool and Wolverine (2024), with $533.7m (£403.5m), Fast and Furious 10 (2023), with $378.8m (£286.4m), fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film On Stranger Tides (2011), with $410.6m (£310.4m), and 2023’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, with $419m (£316.8m).
Star Wars sits atop the TV budgets as well, with Andor creator Tony Gilroy revealing that Disney spent $645m (£487.6m) to make two seasons of the acclaimed spin-off show. This makes it more expensive than any Star Wars film in the franchise’s history.
