Jurassic World‘s Colin Trevorrow admits “There probably should have only been one Jurassic Park“
The Jurassic World and Dominion director dubbed the series "inherently unfranchisable" in a recent interview
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Few people have profited more obviously from Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park—and its subsequent franchise of films—than director Colin Trevorrow. It was, after all, Trevorrow’s 2015 revival project Jurassic World that launched him from an up-and-coming indie director with one minor hit to his name (2012's Safety Not Guaranteed), into a verifiable blockbuster sensation. So it’s interesting to hear Trevorrow state, in a new interview tied to his latest franchise sequel, Jurassic World: Dominion, that “There probably should have only been one Jurassic Park.”
This is per an interview with Empire, in which Trevorrow openly admits that Spielberg’s original movie is “inherently unfranchisable.” (A principle that Spielberg himself started testing, to mixed results, with The Lost World in 1997.) Which, obviously, didn’t stop Universal from trying—or Trevorrow from taking his own cracks at it, first in 2015 with World, and then in 2022 with Dominion. Which was at least a stab at something new for the series, he says: “I specifically did something different than the other films in order to change the DNA of the franchise. The previous five films are plots about dinosaurs. This one is a story about characters in a world in which they coexist with dinosaurs.”
Released back in June, Dominion was a whiff with critics but fared considerably better with audiences, eventually creeping just barely over the vaunted $1 billion box office line. (It’s the second-highest performer of the year worldwide, although Top Gun: Maverick comfortably blew past it a few weeks later.) Trevorrow, for his part, also confesses that he was surprised at some of the movie’s advertising, noting that, “I never knew that this was the ending of the franchise until I saw the marketing.” Noting that he went out of his way, while making the film, to weave in potential new characters and paths for a sequel, Trevorrow pointed out the absurdity of thinking a film series like this will ever just stop at this point: “Because regardless of the cynical approach—of course they’re gonna want to make more money, which is what Jurassic World was about—a new dinosaur fan is born every day.”
80 Comments
I doubt I’m unique in this, but as far as I’m concerned there is only the first Jurassic Park movie.And for that matter, though it’s been quite a few years since I read them, I don’t remember really getting into Crichton’s Lost World sequel book either.
The Lost World is just so insane and incoherent from beginning to end that I can’t help but love it: Hammond managing to lure the guy who was almost killed on a dinosaur-infested island onto a new dinosaur-infested island, a teenager defeating a raptor with gymnastics, bringing a T-Rex to San Diego for reasons that still elude me. It was like Spielberg was chugging mercury during the entire production and it was amazing.
It’s a good ‘hangover movie’ – don’t think too hard on the logic and just enjoy the sloppy assemblage of set pieces – but I kind of expect something more from Spielberg. How did that T-Rex kill the entire crew on the boat? Even if it broke free of its pen, it couldn’t get up into the bridge.
How did that T-Rex kill the entire crew on the boat? Even if it broke free of its pen, it couldn’t get up into the bridge.There was a bit in the original script that had it so that it wasn’t just a T-rex on the boat, but some raptors slipped aboard as well. This, incidentally, is how the raptors got to the mainland in JP novel. Of course, cutting out of the film means the T-Rex in San Diego makes no sense – other than trying to (no kidding, this is why they did it) cash in on the Japanese market’s love for Godzilla films.
The movie really should have included some raptors on the boat along with the T-Rex. They could have had a chopper come in and gun all the raptors down before they got loose in San Diego and still had the T-Rex make it into town.
And then it somehow locked itself back in.
Downtown San Diego was still a bit sketchy in the 1990s before the gentrification. I don’t blame the T. rex for taking precautions.
Well they don’t call it “gym-nice-stics.”
The Lost World was a movie I enjoyed the stupidity of (while simultaneously, at the time, ranting about how stupid it was)… but I was 19 when it came out. These days I wouldn’t give a movie like that the time of day, because it just feels like a waste of time: yeah, I’ve seen this before, nothing new here. Which is the same reason I didn’t bother with JW2 or 3; I can get my CGI ‘n’ explosions fix from much better movies, so why encourage them to make low-effort pandering garbage?
“I can get my CGI ‘n’ explosions fix from much better movies, so why encourage them to make low-effort pandering garbage?”So much this. It feels like a lot of people can’t discern a good blockbuster action movie from a bad one, so there’s a lot of shit shovelled out by studios that either don’t know or don’t care how high the bar really is.
The Lost World had the only death in the entire film franchise that actually seemed tragic given how the guy worked his butt off to save the main characters and got a brutal dual T-Rex death as a reward for his success.
Are you talking about where the T-Rex eats screenwriter David Koepp as he tries to run into a Blockbuster?…which in retrospect is a good metaphor for the movie/series itself.
I’ve got fondish memories off it while immediately thinking it wasn’t anywhere near as good last the first. Admitted I was 10 when it came out and the 14 the last time I saw it (around the time of III’s release).I rewatch the first every couple of years and it’s still just amazing.
I LOVE The Lost World since 1997 and nothing has ever changed after many, many rewatches.
Do you know what though? I don’t disagree but despite being totally bonkers nutzo, I do feel that in places it at least feels tonally consistent with the first one? That creates problems in and of itself because that tone isn’t supposed to support this kind of story, but I do think that occasionally The Lost World gives you the approximate ‘look and feel’ of JP, which none of the other subsequent garbage films do. I think that the reunion of Spielberg and Koepp means that there’s at least a continuity there, even if the plot is largely bereft of meaning.
Which I suppose leads to an obvious point: Jurassic Park is not a franchise because it’s actually already just part of the “Steven Spielberg film” franchise.
I have tried watching The Lost World 3 separate times and each time, I cannot make it more than 20 minutes.
If it had stopped before the San Diego stuff Lost World would probably be a lot better remembered as most of the Site B stuff has decent enough character arcs that are resolved by that end point.
Clever Director
Nah, if anything we need more Jurassic movies. They should fight a dragon in the next one.
Lucrumaeturnum Rex
We already have Reign of Fire.
And Don’t Worry Darling.
I mean, the natural thing is to create a Crichtonverse where the Dinosaurs from Jurassic Park take on the robots from Westworld and the final showdown is a battle between a T-Rex and a robot dragon from Medievalworld. Then the stinger is the revelation that Delos scientists have created their own robot dinosaurs.
Then they have to stop the Andromeda strain from killing the dinosaurs.
Too late, the apes from Congo already did.Then Michael Douglas sues the apes for sexually harassing him, and the Yakuza sells them all drugs until Wesley Snipes and, oh, let’s say Gerard Butler, since Connery is dead, stop them.
Throw in the apes from Congo spreading the Andromeda Strain throughout the Timeline and you’ve got boffo B.O. bay-bee!
And make the dragon out of a variety of other dinosaur body parts, something like a T. rex head with triceratops horns and frill on a sauropod body, with pterosaur wings and deinocheirus arms and a stegosaur tail.
Jurassic Park is optimal for franchising because every movie plot is made better by the addition of dinosaurs. Top Gun Maverick was solid, but is clearly better if the unnamed bad guy was pterodactyls. Kramer v. Kramer v. Raptors, etc
When asked for comment, Trevorrow said, “Ye$, we probably $hould have $topped at the fir$t movie. I feel that Jura$$ic Park, the one relea$ed back in the fir$t half of the ninetie$, was inherently unfranchi$eable.”
“And honestly, could Bryce Dallas Howard stand to lose a few ell bees? Sure.”
I’m surprised she could afford to eat they only paid her $8 million
Ni¢e!
lol Literally. It’s easy to say that from your bed of cash, isn’t it, Colin? But now definitely no one else should do it, huh?
You say this, but don’t tell me you wouldn’t watch Jurassic Galaxy.
That’s ridiculous!Clearly we need three Jurassic Solar System movies first, then a Jurassic Orion Arm trilogy before we can get all the way to Jurassic Galaxy. Show some god damn restraint.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8783146/
Since you mentioned it here is a trailer for Jurassic Galaxy. Enjoy.
I love it when VFX guys don’t know how atmospheres work.
“Jurassic Park… in the desert.”
take my money
You might say it moved him… TO A BIGGER HOUSE!
Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for a proper adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World…
Now The Book of Henry…there’s a cinematic universe worth pursuing!
I don’t think JP is “unfranchiseable” at all, its just that most expect so little from blockbusters in terms of plot and character development that the JP sequels have all been disappointments
Yep. It’s like saying Star Wars is unfranchiseable because Trevorrow wrote a bad script.
There should have only been one Star War.
I really want to see that script, considering what dogshit Rise of Skywalker was.
I remember some details coming out awhile back. There were some cool ideas, but also signs it wouldn’t have been much better than what we got.
I can’t imagine anything worse than “Somehow, Palpatine returned.”
You don’t have to imagine…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Duel_of_the_Fates
Yeah, I’d have to agree with that assessment. Some cool ideas, some not.
What bothers me most is that interpretation of “balance”, where light and dark are two colours of mana and for every Ghandi you need a Hitler to even the scales. It’s so fucking shallow.
In context, he seems to be saying that all of the arcs were wrapped up in the first one, so there was no real creative reason to keep going. Which, yeah, sure, but that seems almost laughably naïve coming from a director of his status. Franchises don’t exist because the original left a lot of unanswered questions; they exist, virtually without exception, because one or more of the movies made enough money to make another attempt an attractive financial prospect. Dominion made Avengers money, so even as a critical disappointment, I promise you more of these are coming, probably in less than a decade.
It really does seem to have a lot of potential.
Should have only been 3 Star Wars. One Halloween. One Matrix. One Jaws. 3 Raiders. One Gremlins. One Ghostbusters. Zero Twilights.
The second Gremlins movie is good though.
The second Gremlins is better than the first in every single way. It’s the Godfather II of Gremlins.
Gremlins 2 is better than the first in almost every way.
How many Back to the Futures?
There should be two Halloweens. Halloween and Halloween III.
Yea ok. 3 was interesting. Happy happy Halloween, Silver Shamrock. The rest are terrible.
I am not surprised, given that Jurassic World was a movie that very clearly told the audience in every way possible that originals are better than bigger money-grabbing copycats. At the time it seemed like a bit of a bold admission, but it was also a bit lost in the fact that Trevorrow was basically admitting his film was inferior, but wanted people to watch because we all love JP, right?
There probably $hould have been only $ne Jura$$ic Park
Jesus, I just realized someone already beat me with this exact joke. I am very smart.
“I never knew that this was the ending of the franchise until I saw the marketing.” Noting that he went out of his way, while making the film, to weave in potential new characters and paths for a sequel”
Oh hey whaddya know exactly the reason I wanted to see Dominion but changed my mind and never will!
Filed under: no shit.
Ohhhh, fuck you Trevorrow. No it’s not ‘inherently unfranchisable,’ YOU are just a hack with zero self-awareness who has failed upwards your entire career.
JW and JW3 had two of the strongest elevator pitches in blockbuster history. Instead of exploiting and building upon these incredibly fertile concepts, Trevorrow ruined them with a string of catastrophic creative decisions; terrible characters; poor plotting; technical incompetence and attempts to insert his own smug social commentary/misogynist gender politics. There are so, so, so many people out there who could’ve spun those ideas into even a half-decent pair of movies. There are so many cool ways they could’ve gone with these films. Instead, Trevorrow decided to turn velociraptors into housepets.
Now, not only has he pre-emptively blamed ‘audience expectations’ for why his first film sucked, he’s blaming the studio system for why the trilogy under his command was a critical disaster. I’d like to see him try and explain away The Book of Henry. Or, better still, just fuck off.
I am absolutely here for the Trevorrow slander. A director that IMO has taken the ‘Hack Director’ crown from Brett Ratner.
He’s also got a lot of effing nerve to blame audiences for their expectations on Dominion when he’s the one who BUILT those expectations at the end of Fallen Kingdom.
“Oh, you wanted to see the movie about humanity facing the dinosaur outbreak that I literally ended my last film with? Too bad, you’ll get giant locusts instead, & I’m turning Blue into Toothless. That’ll teach you to expect what you were promised!”
He’s not great, sure. But even the original JP franchise had diminishing returns — JP2 was worse than JP1 and JP3 worse than JP2. I don’t think there was more than one movie (or book) in the concept, although both Hollywood and Crichton obviously wanted to milk the concept.
Diminishing returns doesn’t mean there’s not franchise potential.
I do get what you’re saying, and I think Trevorrow has a fraction of a point in that it’s probably going to be harder for subsequent movies to convey the sense of awe/wonder that Jurassic Park gave audiences (although even then, a good director could’ve used technological advances to their advantage in this regard). But even if you can’t make dinosaurs ‘impressive’ anymore, there is absolutely no reason you can’t make them scary or threatening, or find ways to tell decent stories around the concept.
This is a world where character co-exist with dinosaurs. To the point where they are barely in the movie beyond a few trailer scenes. The rest of it, LOCUSTS BABY!
What is so unfranchisable about movies where dinosaurs chase people? If they would focus more on that core aspect, and less on convoluted plots about cloning and unbelievable romances and boring family histories, they’d have a better time of it. I appreciated that Dominion was about “people trying to coexist in a world with dinosaurs.” Those parts of the movie were interesting and had potential. But then it spent so much time on prehistoric bugs and culminated in another secluded lab/park setting.
Seriously. No one gave a shit about Maisie. It would have been so easy (for someone who knows how to make movies which I don’t) for someone to conceive a plot about DINOSAURS LIVING AMONG PEOPLE. That just seems like something anyone would want to go see. No one wanted another movie about scientific ethics that we’ve seen 5 times before. Dinosaurs. Eating people. Stepping on houses. Being kept as pets. Being used as farm animals. Busting through movie screens like the Kool-Aid man. This stuff writes itself.
I like BD Wong. Heck, I’m pleased almost every time he appears on my TV. When he showed up in Dominion my eyes rolled so far back into my head I’m convinced I saw my own brain. Full-on “Oh Christ, why are the dino lab people STILL HIRING THIS ASSHOLE” (except in my head, because airplane). Also, that hair was a crime.
Oh BD Wong is the best, no question. What they did to his whole character is a crime. First he a regular scientist. Not good, not evil, just neutral, with a bit of hubris. Then suddenly he’s not just evil, he’s like eeeevillll. Then suddenly he’s some long-haired do-gooding hippie? Fuck outta here.
But then we never would have gotten the talking raptor on the plane in Jurassic Park 3.I’m not sure if that’s an argument for or against ending the series after the first movie.
“I specifically did something different than the other films in order to change the DNA of the franchise. The previous five films are plots about dinosaurs. This one is a story about characters in a world in which they coexist with dinosaurs.” That’s cute, but no, you didn’t do anything different from the others. It was the exact same “they tried to control the uncontrollable and look what happened” plot as the rest of them (except The Lost World and JP3 didn’t really have that angle, but they sort of did with Pete Postelthwaite’s character in TLW and the egg stealing subplot in JP3). I wish Dominion had literally been what he says it was—about people living with dinosaurs. That’s what I wanted to see. I really wanted to see it. Not another retread of “they were so concerned with whether or not they could they didn’t stop to think if they should!” I really wanted immersion in a world where dinosaurs exist in the wild, but you had us worried about giant locusts and some compound in the mountains.Bah.
“inherently unfranchisable.” Counter-arguement: a whole-assed franchise existing.