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‘Jurassic World Dominion’ director explains ‘traumatic’ editing process

He explained that he would have liked the film to run for longer, and had to cut several scenes out.

Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard in character looking astonished in a still from “Jurassic World:Dominion”
Via Paramount Pictures

Colin Trevorrow, director of Jurassic World Dominion, recently opened up about the editing process for the major blockbuster, describing it as “traumatic” and ”challenging.”

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Speaking exclusively with Screen Rant, the director explained that several scenes had to be removed from the final cut in order to maintain the film’s two and a half hour runtime. He also expressed his desire for the audience to have seen the “complete movie,”which would have made a lot more sense to viewers. 

“It’s a really, really challenging and at times traumatic process internally. Because it was my editor and I in the cutting room, knowing that we had to streamline this movie to get it under two and a half hours. And in order to do it, it took having to step away and look at the whole thing from 10,000 feet and just figure out what we could do. Even though way deep down, we wish that they could see the complete movie to make sure that people understood what was going on. That people understood how these people knew each other; very basic stuff.”

“And the tough thing for me is that, inevitably, you’re going to lose a lot of little things. I think the way a movie breathes; the way you get to know characters is just by seeing how they are almost in the off hours a little bit—not when they’re on. And when you streamline a movie like this, everyone’s on all the time, and sometimes it feels like they’re running to catch up with a movie or it’s gonna get away. I’m glad it got to be at its natural resting weight.”

Even though it failed to resonate with critics, Jurassic World was a hit with audiences and currently stands as the highest-grossing film of 2022 behind Top Gun: Maverick, with $975 million earned at the box office. Trevorrow also directed 2015’s Jurassic World, which raked in over $1.6 billion worldwide.