Jurassic World: Dominion will be operating on a much bigger scale than any previous entry in the saga, and not just because of its Tyrannosaurus-sized cast. If you cast your mind back four years to the end of 2018’s Fallen Kingdom, you’ll remember that dinosaurs were released into the Earth’s eco-system, meaning that they’re no longer confined to one island and have spread throughout the planet.
The Jurassic franchise has always operated in the sci-fi realm, of course, but this pushes the series into full-on “what if?” territory as the upcoming threequel will introduce us to a world where dinosaurs are everywhere. This presented some interesting creative opportunities and challenges for writer/director Colin Trevorrow, then, who has explained how he approached this major shift to the status quo.
As Trevorrow told Total Film Magazine (via GamesRadar), the initial thing this new premise did was allow the filmmakers to tap into that childhood fantasy of dinosaurs running amok. At the same time, however, Trevorrow wanted to make sure to take this crazy idea and actualize it in as realistic a way as possible, exploring what actually would happen if the prehistoric beasts became commonplace.
As the filmmaker put it:
“I know that there’s something in all of us – it’s probably the child in all of us – that imagines dinosaurs running randomly through the streets of cities, and eating people out of their Starbucks, and causing cars to crash into each other… But it was important to me that we try to at least approach it from a place of reality: what if this insane thing actually happened? The rule that we made was, we tried not to have dinosaurs do anything or interact in any way that animals wouldn’t in our modern world. You know, we have bears and tigers and lions and things that will eat you if you go into their territory, or mess with their young. We have animals in zoos. We weaponize them. We put them in our homes as pets. We sell them in markets. So all of these different realities are in this film in different ways.”
We previously got a taste of how the new Jurassic World order worked in 2019 short film Battle at Big Rock, which saw a family’s camping trip go horrifically south when dinos stormed their vacation sight. Likewise, 2021’s Dominion prologue short — which is free to watch on YouTube — follows the iconic T-Rex from the original Jurassic Park as she’s pursued through a drive-thru theater by authorities.
But these two teasers are just a taste of what we’ve got coming in Jurassic World: Dominion, which is also set to unite current stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard with OG trio Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum. Don’t miss it when it opens in theaters from June 10.