The most expensive movie ever was Jurassic World: Dominion, beating Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Filmed at the peak of the pandemic in 2020, Universal had to adopt costly safety protocols during production. It also faced months of delays which pushed the premiere of the movie back by a year to June 2022.

Maintaining productions in a state of readiness during the downtime caused studios’ costs to surge as they had to continue paying for soundstages and leased equipment, which could not be returned without risking losing the access window to it. Furthermore, some security staff had to be paid to watch over sets. And so did some high-level producers and department heads, to ensure they remained available when the pandemic receded.

The A-list cast didn’t slum it during their five-month quarantine period, either. The stars were holed up in Marriott’s opulent Langley Hotel in the U.K., near where Dominion was filmed at the historic Pinewood Studios. An 18th-century manor, the Langley’s wood-panelled lounge is home to an elegant piano which featured in viral social media videos during lockdown as Goldblum played old-school jazz songs while Neill sung alongside him. Rooms at the hotel cost more than $600 a night, big enough to impact Universal’s bottom line for the film.

The exact cost of making movies in the U.S. is usually a closely guarded secret. Although the “budget” for a movie may leak, the fully itemized costs are combined in disclosures to the SEC, thiys hiding costs for individual movies.

It’s a different story in the U.K., where “Dominion” and “The Force Awakens” were both made.

Studios filming in the U.K. benefit from the government’s Audio-Visual Expenditure Credit (AVEC) which gives them a cash reimbursement of up to 25.5% of the money they spend there, as an incentive for foreign studios to use British talent and locations. 

But the cash comes with a catch.

To qualify for the reimbursement, a movie must pass a points test proving its worth to the U.K. The test is based on factors such as how many of the lead actors are from the U.K., the amount of U.K. content, and how much filming was done in the U.K. It explains why scenes in “Dominion” were shot in the woods of south-east England, while Wolfson College at Oxford University doubled for the headquarters of the Biosyn Corporation that cloned some of the dinosaurs in the film. Likewise, Universal’s points tally was helped by the presence of British actress Isabella Sermon, who plays the cloned girl at the heart of the movie.

In addition, at least 10% of the core costs of the production need to be incurred in the U.K. In order to demonstrate this to the government, studios set up a separate Film Production Company (FPC) there for each picture. The FPCs have to file financial statements which shine a spotlight on everything from the headcount and social security payments of the staff to the amount of reimbursement banked by the studio and the total cost of the production. It takes a bit of detective work to get to the bottom of it.

The FPCs usually have code names so they don’t raise attention with fans when they file for permits to shoot on location. Dominion was thereby made by Universal’s subsidiary Arcadia Pictures, named after a rescue ship that carried the dinosaurs to safety in the previous film, “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” also shot in the U.K.. The FPC behind that movie was called Ancient Futures, in a nod to the cloning process which created the creatures.

The financial statements are filed in stages, starting during pre-production and going on long after the premiere to give the company time to collect all of its bills and receive the money for them. The latest set for Arcadia Pictures were filed this year and show that during the year to December 31, 2024, the company’s costs came to $74.9 million (£59.6 million) bringing the total to $658.8 million.

One of the biggest single costs was paying the staff which peaked at an average of 454 monthly employees. That doesn’t include freelancers, contractors, and temporary staff—they aren’t listed on the books of British companies even though they often represent the majority of workers on a film shoot. Universal paid $36.2 million (£27.5 million) to staff working on “Dominion” in addition to spending on U.K. services such as security, equipment hire, transport and catering.

This economic impact justifies the cost reimbursement, which came to a total of $127.8 million (£99.5 million) bringing Universal’s net outlay on the movie down to $531 million. 

Then comes the revenue.

The amount theaters pay to studios is known in the trade as a rental fee and is widely established as being a 50-50 split, which would give Universal $500 million from Dominion’s box office haul of almost precisely $1 billion. After deducting Universal’s $531 million net outlay, it yields a small loss on its theatrical run, but the share of ticket takings isn’t a studio’s only return from a movie. It also generates revenue from Blu Ray and streaming sales as well as merchandise.

Universal’s filings show that Dominion was the most expensive of the three latest “Jurassic World” films, followed by “Fallen Kingdom” at $606.3 million and $254.2 million for “Jurassic World Rebirth,” which was released last year. Their combined $262.1 million reimbursement brought Universal’s net outlay on them down to $1.3 billion and its $1.6 billion share of the box office left it with a $300 million profit. If it wasn’t for the reimbursement, that would have been closer to zero.

A sequel to “Rebirth” is in development. Given how much money Universal has got from the U.K., it seems highly likely that filming will return there. Universal isn’t the only studio reeling in profits from the reimbursement scheme. According to the latest data from the British Film Institute (BFI), spending on feature film production in the UK rose 31% to a record $3.8 billion (£2.8 billion) last year.

It plugs a crucial gap as box office takings are still far from their pre-pandemic high. Industry experts Gower Street Analytics forecast that worldwide box office takings will hit $34.7 billion this year, 18% less than the peak in 2019.

The rich rewards from the reimbursement scheme have made the U.K. a hub for Hollywood studios. Disney has a long-term deal with Pinewood while arch-rivals Amazon and Netflix have taken up residence in nearby Shepperton. 

If President Trump has his way the curtain could come down on these deals.

In May last year Trump rocked Hollywood with the announcement that a 100% tariff will be applied to movies entering the U.S. that are produced in “foreign lands”. It was an attempt to bring filmmaking back to the U.S. Five months after his initial announcement, he wrote on social media that “in order to solve this long time, never ending problem, I will be imposing a 100% Tariff on any and all movies that are made outside of the United States.”

The policy has yet to be enacted. But if it were, and studios lost their U.K. financing, it could leave “Jurassic World: Dominion” as the king of the movie budget rankings for years.