After 2 successful box-office sequels, Jurassic World: Dominion, the 3rd installment in the Jurassic World sequel trilogy, is still ways away. But with some worthy additions and the excitement continuing to build, there's no better time to talk about the highly anticipated sequel and what we know so far.
The 2015 box office success Jurassic World brought the beloved franchise back to the big screen, setting up new characters, thrilling sequences, and plenty of more dinos. 3 years later, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom sought to carry those same thrills over, ending on a unique yet sort of divisive note that set up a lot of questions for the next film.
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As glimpses of clips and information have slowly trickled in over the past year, Jurassic World: Dominion has still provided fans with new and exciting information that'll surely have many rushing back to theatres in the summer of 2022. These are up-to-date details of what is known so far about the upcoming sequel.
It was back in February 2018 that the then untitled Jurassic World 3 would premiere on June 11, 2021, and announced in March 2018 that Colin Trevorrow would be returning to direct (J.A. Bayona directed Fallen Kingdom). The film was then pushed back due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cameras started rolling in Canada on February 19, 2020, but the film was temporarily shut down on March 13, 2020, later resuming on July 6, 2020, with strict safety protocols in check and wrapping filming on November 7, 2020. Hoping to ensure the most successful box office performance, Universal announced on October 6, 2020, that the new theatrical release date would be slated for June 10, 2022.
One exciting component to Jurassic World: Dominion that has everyone hyped is the return of some big characters from the original 1993 classic. Along with the sequel trilogy's new leads like Chris Pratt's Owen Grady and Bryce Dallas Howard's Claire Denning, Sam Neill's Dr. Alan Grant, Jeff Goldblum's Dr. Ian Malcolm, and Laura Dern's Dr. Ellie Sattler will be joining the thrilling adventure. While Sam Neill and Laura Dern did appear in 2001's Jurassic Park 3 and Jeff Goldblum made his presence known in a couple of the sequels, this will be the first time all 3 characters will be on the big screen in roughly 30 years.
Some other notable characters from the original film and the sequels returning are BD Wong's Dr. Henry Wu, Justice Smith's Franklin Webb, and Omar Sy's Barry Sembène. Being the last film in the franchise (as of now), this cast is sure to satisfy fans and live up to the higher stakes.
In an interview with Collider, Trevorrow has teased some of those character interactions and balancing the new leads with the originals, stating, "…Laura and Sam and Jeff are just as big a part of the movie as Chris and Bryce are, as far as screen time, as far as their importance to the story, everything. And so, what you're doing is, is you're telling two parallel stories that are just driving closer and closer together, and you understand that, and you start to understand how they're going to intersect, and then they do."
Following the ending of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom where the cloned orphaned granddaughter of Benjamin Lockwood, Maisie, frees all the dinosaurs at their estate, letting them roam in the wilderness and other urban areas, this set up a lot of interesting questions on where the film could go. Would it just involve dinosaurs terrorizing civilians or be something more that has something to say about the way humans and animals coexist? And although not too much has been revealed, Trevorrow has confirmed that Jurassic World: Dominion has a Jason Bourne/James Bond, globe-trotting adventure feel to it all as the production has transitioned from locations like Hawaii to British Columbia and several in the UK.
"Well, I'm sure it's no secret that we shot in the UK, we shot in British Columbia. We shot in Malta. And those are essentially representing our locations. There's another major location that I don't want to disclose just yet," Trevorrow claims. "But there's any environment you can imagine, ecological environment, physical environment that you can think of, it's represented in this movie, is a big globe-hopping adventure. It's got a little bit of Bourne and Bond and a bit of a spy movie thrown into it too. Spy movie, science thriller with dinosaurs."
The director also claimed that story will take place in current 2022, about 4 years after the events of the last film.
Ahead of F9's IMAX release back in June, fans got to watch an exclusive 5-minute preview of Jurassic World: Dominion that took place during the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago and depicted what it was like with just dinosaurs ruling the planet. Other than the shots capturing the dinos, the teaser provided an even closer look at the mosquitos gathering dino DNA that would ultimately lead to the creation of the dinosaurs and Jurassic Park we see in the original film.
It looks like the film will not include a hybrid dinosaur to serve as the film's antagonist, as Trevorrow wants to further explore the ways the natural/pure dinosaurs are inhabiting their new lands. It makes sense since the film is seeking to wrap things up, and with so many characters and plots to juggle, the last thing Trevorrow and the whole crew want to give to audiences is a bloated story and not enough payoff.
Colin Trevorrow directed and release a short film back in 2019 titled Battle at Big Rock, which follows the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and serves as a tie-in to Jurassic World: Dominion. The story centers around a family from Oakland, California that heads on a camping trip to a fictional nation park. There, they encounter multiple dinosaurs as they try to battle their out towards survival. The short premiered on FX and was subsequently released online.
With already less than a year away from Jurassic World: Dominion's June 10, 2022 release, more and more information will inevitably make its way online and give fans even bigger reasons to be thrilled. With what is released so far, though, the film is shaping up to be one wild ride.
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