The End Of Oak Street’s Rotten Tomatoes Review Score Is In

The End of Oak Street

Courtesy of Warner Bros.

The End of Oak Street has had a wild history thus far, and when you see it all laid out, it gets even weirder.

• The End of Oak Street was directed by David Robert Mitchell, who did the all-time horror classic, It Follows.
• The End of Oak Street stars big names like Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor.
• The End of Oak Street is about a suburban neighborhood that comes under siege by dinosaurs.
• The End of Oak Street made people mad when it rolled out marketing that included talking AI-generated dogs doing a podcast.

• The End of Oak Street has now been reviewed by critics, where it has an 85% Rotten Tomatoes score, and some are calling it the best dinosaur film since Jurassic Park.
• The End of Oak Street is projected to open with $15-25 million on an $80 million budget.

What a ride. This is going to turn out to be a very interesting experiment in original features, not some potential breakout horror film (like It Follows, incidentally), but needing to sell audiences on a very odd concept. The idea is that big stars like Hathaway (she’s had quite the year) and McGregor will draw audiences in. Competition is going to be tough, however. We have long-tail weeks for the enormously earning Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey, and this weekend also marks the release of PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie. If you don’t think that’s going to be big, you don’t have a four-year-old. It seems like The End of Oak Street has the potential to get lost in the shuffle.

Most critics really, really believe you should show up for it, however. Here’s a sampling of what some are saying about the unique project:

• Inverse – “This movie is Spielbergian to its core, and writer-director David Robert Mitchell pays tribute to the king of the blockbuster with all the thrilling set pieces and kids in peril that fans could ever hope for.”
• Independent UK – “The End of Oak Street feels original and exciting and not, to borrow a little internet lingo, like Jurassic Park’s “reheated nachos”. It’s one of the best films of the summer.”
• New York Magazine – “I can’t fathom how The End of Oak Street actually exists, even if it is a perfect example of what the big studios should be doing right now — making original spectacles, ideally ones in which Anne Hathaway fires a rifle at a velociraptor.”

I understand what they mean when they say it’s what big studios should be doing right now, as it’s the antithesis of the enormous blockbuster comic book and ‘80s toy adaptations we usually see. But there is a reason we don’t see all that many creative projects like this, because they can be a tough sell. Hopefully The End of Oak Street manages to break through to audiences this coming weekend.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.