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Cloning

Here's how much it would cost to build a real Jurassic Park

How much for one raptor?

ONE OF THE underlying motives in Jurassic World is the need to create a profitable dinosaur park.

This is what pushes the creation of dangerous hybrid dinosaur Indominus Rex (which turns out not to be the best idea).

Now, it makes sense why money is always on the mind of the park’s operations manager Claire Dearing (played by Bryce Dallas Howard): Operating a dinosaur park isn’t cheap.

PastedImage-15211 Indominus Rex Universal Pictures / YouTube Universal Pictures / YouTube / YouTube

video from Fandango’s Movieclips broke down all of the park’s costs and came to the conclusion that overall, running Jurassic World would cost $23,432,400,000 (around €20,800,000,000).

The video uses real life examples to figure out how much a dinosaur park would cost.

jurassic world trailer Universal Pictures Universal Pictures

According to Movieclips, the biggest cost would be the purchase of two islands.

There’s the one to house the dinos, Isla Nublar:

screen shot 2015-06-15 at 11.06.36 am

And, then Isla Sorna, where the dinosaurs are raised:

screen shot 2015-06-15 at 11.06.45 am

Both of these islands are off the coast of Costa Rica. The video used Costa Rica real estate websites to estimate that both islands combined are worth a grand total of $10,000,000,000.

Meanwhile, the park would have to employ an array of scientists, caretakers, and lawyers (who probably have a lot on their plate after every dinosaur attack).

screen shot 2015-06-15 at 11.12.05 am

That adds up to a price of about $7.9 million.

Then, you actually have to clone the dinosaurs. To figure out that huge cost, the video cites real life company Bio Arts, which is one of a handful of companies that clones people’s dogs. They charge $150,000 to clone a dog. That number is multiplied by 50 to represent the 50 different dinosaurs in the park.

Adding a few other research phases brings that grand total to $8.5 million.

screen shot 2015-06-15 at 11.35.31 am

For example, extracting the dinosaur DNA from mosquitoes trapped in amber is estimated to cost about $9 million.

screen shot 2015-06-15 at 12.07.27 pm

The construction of the park might cost something around $1.5 billion. This is a similar amount it took to build some of the world’s biggest theme parks.

According to the video, Disney spends about $11.7 billion a year in park operating expenses, or an astounding $32 million per day.

The cost to “feed, groom, and nurture” dinosaurs would be around $307 million a year.

jurassic park trailer

This number comes from the actual cost of “a very large zoo.”

The San Diego Zoo, the world’s largest zoo; it has 3,700 animals and more than 650 different species. They spend about $307 million a year in operating expenses, which would be about the same cost for caring for the dinosaurs.

Once you’ve brought all those dinosaurs back, you have to keep them alive.

Add up all these costs for a grand total of $23,432,400,000 with annual repeating costs of $11,907,000,000. So while park attendance seems to be high and tickets to get in aren’t cheap, it takes a lot to break even.

No word though on how much it costs to purchase all those great white sharks that Mosasaurus feasts on in the film.

mosasaurus2 Universal Pictures / YouTube Universal Pictures / YouTube / YouTube

Jurassic World is currently in cinemas. It recently broke a few box-office records.

Watch the full video below:

Jurassic Park Fansite / YouTube

Poll: Will you go to see Jurassic World? >

Read: Jurassic World just had a MASSIVE weekend >

Published with permission from
Business Insider
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