Original Jurassic Park stars talk returning for Jurassic World: Dominion

It’s almost time to return to Jurassic Park…except this time, the park is coming to us! Jurassic World: Dominion is set to debut in theaters on June 10, and this latest installment in the franchise is promising to be something truly special. Not only is it again directed by Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow, but the film will also feature the reunion of original Jurassic Park stars Sam Neill (Alan Grant), Laura Dern (Ellie Sattler), and Jeff Goldblum (Ian Malcolm). While each of the actors has made individual returns to the franchise over the years, this will mark the first time that all three of them are together again, running from dinos and debating the ethics of cloning prehistoric animals.

The route it feels like Hollywood would normally take for something like this would be to have those stars return for some kind of cameo, but that’s not what Trevorrow is doing with Dominion. Though that series has its own main stars in Chris Pratt (Owen Grady) and Bryce Dallas Howard (Claire Dearing), this new film promises to merge all the plotlines into the biggest dinosaur adventure yet. It’s a bold move that has whipped up quite a lot of excitement among fans.

Original Jurassic Park stars discuss their return to the franchise

The first Jurassic Park movie was a groundbreaking piece of cinema when it came out back in 1993. Director Steven Spielberg used every tool in his arsenal to make the movie into the cultural touchstone. Yet while Spielberg is attached to Jurassic World: Dominion as an executive producer, the onus of convincing Neill, Dern, and Goldblum to return fell on Colin Trevorrow. No easy favors to call in this time!

“At the beginning of that, [Neill] probably was looking at me with a certain amount of skepticism and side-eye,” Trevorrow told Empire. “I’m not Steven Spielberg. I never will be. And so I really had to start from scratch in convincing these people that I was going to be able to guide them through the return to these characters that mean so much to them.”

Whatever Trevorrow said, he clearly made an impression. Sam Neill went so far as to compare the director to Spielberg himself. “That’s the guy he reminds me most of. And I don’t say that lightly – I really don’t. He’s inventive, enthusiastic, always energetic.”

“Colin [Trevorrow] was really keen to make it matter,” Laura Dern said. “We discover what it would feel like if these three characters came back together, and how they would feel about each other. And it’s delicious.”

And the stars have brought a lot to the table. Apparently, Jeff Goldblum had a literal book of Ian Malcolm ad-libs that he carried around on set, as a way of inserting more improvised comedic lines into the film. He gave an example drawn from a lab scene with one of the film’s new characters, played by Mamoudou Athie. “We’re on a computer trying to fix something or other, and somebody says, ‘Uh-oh, it’s started flashing Error 99,’” explained Goldblum. “And before Mamoudou’s character comes in and explains, I was gonna slip in, very quickly, the line, ‘Error 99? Is it Barbara Feldon?’”

"Now, Barbara Feldon was an agent in Get Smart, a television series from 1962 or something, who played Agent 99. So, a lot of my ideas have to do with references that are totally irrelevant and of no interest or amusement to anybody who could possibly be watching a movie, and inappropriate to the scene. But it tickled me."

Trevorrow, for his part, is fully on board with Goldblum’s antics. “He would always bring extra things in his book that, yes, were often references to 1940s musicals, but he’s both hilarious and very powerful,” he said. “It’s not just a comedy role. It’s the power of his presence in this movie that I love the most.”

Who is the villain in Jurassic World: Dominion?

In addition to doctors Grant, Sattler, and Malcolm, Jurassic World: Dominion also features the return of another longtime franchise mainstay: the biological engineering company BioSyn. BioSyn was the largest competitor to Jurassic Park founder John Hammond’s own corporation, InGen. You might recall that in the very first movie, it was computer tech Denis Nedry’s (Wayne Knight) attempt to smuggle dinosaur embryos off the island that started the whole chain reaction of death and destruction in the park. Nedry was contracted to do this by a BioSyn employee named Lewis Dodgson. Both BioSyn and Dodgson will be returning in this film, though the character will be played by Campbell Scott this time around instead of original actor Cameron Thor.

“BioSyn got the contract to house the dinosaurs that have been captured around the world via various governments,” explained Trevorrow. “They claim it’s a research facility where they can study the pharmaceutical values of the animals. But there’s some other stuff going on.”

Trevorrow also teased that one of the company’s prized possessions is a Gigantasaurus, which he compared to Batman’s Joker. Apparently, this real-life dinosaur was mainly interested in “watching the world burn.” So file that away in your folder of animals to avoid at all costs.

The fact that Jurassic World: Dominion is including a deep cut villain like BioSyn, which was more important in Michael Crichton’s novels than it ever was in the films, says a lot about the film’s attention to detail. We can only hope it delivers, because so far there are a lot of reasons to be hopeful.

Jurassic World: Dominion hits theaters on June 10. Hold on to your butts!

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