While the movie industry continues to be roiled by the coronavirus pandemic, with release dates and distribution strategies seemingly changing daily, production has been more or less able to continue on some of the most highly anticipated films of the next few years.
One of those is Jurassic World: Dominion, the sixth film overall in the Jurassic Park sequence and the third in the new trilogy that launched back in June 2015 with Jurassic World. That film’s director, Colin Trevorrow, returned for the new entry, which began filming last February, was shut down by COVID-19 for several months, and resumed production last July — only to partially shut down in October for two weeks when several members of the production tested positive for the virus (they later tested negative).
Principal photography on Jurassic World: Dominion finally concluded in early November, with Trevorrow directing a cast that included returning Jurassic World stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jake Johnson, Omar Sy and B.D. Wong (who’s been with the franchise from the start). Joining them in the film were original Jurassic Park stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, all of whom have come back in previous installments but have not been in a film in the series together since the original.
Den of Geek spoke with longtime Jurassic Park/World producer Frank Marshall about uniting the current and legacy casts and whether that indicated that Dominion will likely make fans very happy.
“I think it’s a celebration and Colin wanted to celebrate the entire series,” Marshall says. “We don’t just have cameos from the original three. Everybody’s got a part in this one and it was really fun bringing them all together. I think they had a blast as well working together.”
As for whether Dominion will also serve as a conclusion to the series or a gateway to more movies, Marshall hinted, “The dinosaurs are here amongst us now and I think there’s opportunity for a lot more stories. But we’ll see.”
Dominion will pick up where 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom left off, with the technology to create dinosaurs not only going fully open source, but a number of the creatures escaping the Lockwood estate in Northern California and making their way into the wilderness and outer urban areas. The film will reportedly address the eventual question of whether humans and dinosaurs can co-exist in a world where the latter’s return is quickly becoming rampant.
Jurassic World: Dominion is now scheduled to open on June 10, 2022, after its initial release date of June 11, 2021 was delayed by the pandemic.