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Credit: Bad Robot / Warner Bros.After last year’s Jurassic World Rebirth (2025), the Jurassic franchise is taking a break, as the next dinosaur-filled summer blockbuster is the upcoming film The End of Oak Street (2026), directed by David Robert Mitchell (It Follows) and produced by J.J. Abrams.
If you’ve seen any of the trailers for The End of Oak Street, you’ll know what it’s about: an ’80s family is transported back to the prehistoric age, along with their entire neighborhood, via some kind of mysterious supernatural storm.
What Is The End of Oak Street?
“After a mysterious cosmic event rips Oak Street from suburbia and transports their neighborhood to someplace unknown, the Platt family soon discovers that their very survival depends on them sticking together as they navigate their now unrecognizable surroundings,” the official synopsis from Warner Bros. reads.
The film stars Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada) and Ewan McGregor (Doctor Sleep). Watch the final trailer here:
Related: The ‘Jurassic Park’ Films May Be Going Extinct, Official Update Suggests
The End of Oak Street deals with family drama, time travel, and dinosaurs. And most notably, suburbia-set dinosaurs — something the last two Jurassic World films, Dominion and Rebirth, failed to deliver.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly in May, director David Robert Mitchell shared the inspiration behind the idea of seeing terrifying prehistoric creatures roaming a suburbia setting, saying: “A few years ago, I was walking through our neighborhood in Michigan, just walking down the street, and I was passing by this garage [with a] chain link fence and garbage cans, and I was struck by the image of, like, ‘It’d be really interesting if there was a dinosaur right there.’”
The Flintstones Connection Explained
Whenever one hears the words “dinosaur” and “suburbia” in the same sentence, naturally, they gravitate towards the Jurassic Park/World films. However, The End of Oak Street appears to have more in common with another iconic dinosaur franchise: The Flintstones.
Think about it: the Flintstones are a “modern Stone Age family” (per the official title song), and the Platt family are transported back to the time of the dinosaurs along with their suburbia.
What if this is the origin of Bedrock itself? What if The End of Oak Street is actually a loose Flintstones prequel in disguise? It sounds quite ridiculous, we know, but there are a few clues.
In the latest trailer for the film (above), a young girl is singing the Flintstones theme song while her neighbors — the Platts — can be seen running from a dinosaur down the street.
A bit of fun or something more meaningful?
Could Ewan McGregor’s Greg secretly be Fred? If that’s the case, Anne Hathaway’s Denise would be Wilma, Maisy Stella’s Audrey would be Pebbles, and perhaps Christian Convery‘s Brian would be Bamm-Bamm. Okay, the latter child is a Rubble and not a Flintstone, but who knows — maybe the Platts take him in when his parents (Barney and Betty) are eaten by dinosaurs or something.
Speaking of dinosaurs, we wouldn’t be surprised if the Platts end up with a prehistoric pet (the last two Jurassic Worlds did this). In other words, the Flintstones’ dog-like Snorkasaurus, Dino.
The Flintstones, a prime-time animated series by Hanna-Barbera, is, of course, a comedy sitcom classic, but there are many examples where family-friendly IPs have been given a dark makeover.
The Flintstones franchise has already had a traditional theatrical outing with The Flintstones (1994), which starred John Goodman as Fred Flintstone and Rick Moranis as Barney Rubble. It was followed by the prequel, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000).
But The End of Oak Street sounds like a far more exciting prequel than watching Fred and Wilma fall in love.
Putting the Stone Age family comparisons aside, if you want to hear lots of “running and screaming” (and possibly the odd “Yabba dabba doo”), The End of Oak Street will be released on August 14, 2026.
Are you excited about The End of Oak Street? Do you think it could secretly be a Flintstones movie in disguise? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
