Jurassic Park Star Says Legacy Cast Had Amazing Time On JW: Dominion
Jurassic Park star Laura Dern says she and the other legacy cast members had an extraordinary time filming Jurassic World: Dominion. Steven Spielberg's 1993 film, based on Michael Crichton's 1990 novel of the same name, was a massive success on release and has become an enduring classic of the science-fiction genre. It spawned two initial sequels before the series was rebooted with 2015's Jurassic World, and Dominion, the third installment of the new sequence, is scheduled for theatrical release on June 10, 2022.
The Jurassic World movies are named after a new real-life dinosaur amusement park built on the same island as the original, though at the start of the series, the successor has been operating without a hitch for some time. Things do, of course, go terribly wrong, and the 2018 sequel Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ends with shots of a few dinosaurs roaming free just outside urban areas. The new film, which sees Colin Trevorrow return as director after passing on the previous sequel to J.A. Bayona, features an ensemble cast that brings back the original film's principal characters, including Dern's Dr. Ellie Sattler, Sam Neill's Dr. Alan Grant, and Jeff Goldblum's Dr. Ian Malcolm.
In an interview with ET, Dern shares that returning to the Jurassic Park universe has been a positive experience for the original cast members. She cites reuniting with her former co-stars as a particular joy, and expresses gratitude at being able to rejoin a series that has such a strong environmentalist message at its core. That, Dern says, is thanks to the novel that started it all:
Well, I'm so excited. We had an extraordinary time all being together and back together. I feel really excited and privileged to be part of something that in its core, you know, was environmental messaging thanks to Michael Crichton long ago.
While Goldblum's Malcolm had a cameo role in Fallen Kingdom, the returning characters are expected to play a more involved part in the story of Dominion, joining what is shaping up to be quite the ensemble. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard reprise their roles as Owen Grady and Claire Dearing, the principal characters of the Jurassic World trilogy, while young Fallen Kingdom stars Isabella Sermon and Justice Smith also carry over into the sequel. Additionally, a number of new characters are set to be introduced, bringing in actors like Mamoudou Athie, Scott Haze, and Dichen Lachman to the franchise.
Fans of the original Jurassic Park are surely delighted to hear the film's stars enjoyed their return, and while that doesn't always translate to recapturing the magic on-screen, it certainly helps. The previous film ends with Goldblum declaring that humans and dinosaurs must now learn to coexist, and Trevorrow has promised Jurassic World: Dominion will answer that question - with a pretty firm no. Thanks to that tease, viewers were already expecting some excellent city-rampaging in the next installment, and now Dern reminds fans they should be prepared to get hit right in the nostalgia-feels too.
Source: ET