You might assume that piracy is a major concern only for the latest Hollywood hits. But that’s not the case, especially when it comes to long-running franchises.
Exclusive data shared with Luminate by the research firm MUSO, which focuses on global piracy consumption, shows that a new entry in a major film franchise often inspires increased illicit viewing of the preceding films.
Indeed, this pattern is visible among two such franchises that rolled out new installments in 2025: Paramount’s Mission: Impossible and Universal’s Jurassic World.
Both saw global piracy demand spike for all films in the series around the time of their 2025 releases, going all the way back to their initial entries from the 1990s. (MUSO does not share exact piracy figures; the percentages below represent the share of the film’s total piracy demand that occurred in the given month.)
This mirrors viewership patterns seen in legal streaming as well. The original Jurassic Park, for instance, saw a nearly 200% increase in U.S. minutes streamed between June and July 2025. (The latest sequel, Jurassic World Rebirth, released July 2.) Viewing time for 2015’s Jurassic World grew more than 500% in the same span, according to Luminate Streaming Viewership (M).
It makes sense, then, that NBCUniversal made sure to have all six previous Jurassic titles available on its SVOD Peacock when Rebirth hit theaters and when the new film arrived on Peacock in the fall. It’s clear that acquiring and prominently featuring back-catalog titles in tandem with a new installment release can capture renewed audience interest and drive engagement.
This strategy obviously did not curtail Jurassic piracy completely but likely helped tamp it down to some degree, at least in the U.S. (still the only market where Peacock is available).
Notably, illicit viewing of past entries rose again in the December-to-January holiday season, when Rebirth was still streaming on Peacock but its predecessors had begun dropping off the platform. (The first two Jurassic World films left the service on Dec. 15, while third entry Dominion and the original Park trilogy disappeared on Jan. 1.)
If prominently featuring previous franchise entries can be a boon, it seems, lacking them can also work against a platform.
No wonder, then, that Netflix scooped up all three previous Jurassic World titles to stream alongside Rebirth just after the new film arrived on the service last month. In the current streaming era, franchise management extends far beyond when new entries arrive in theaters.
