After the end credits of
Jurassic World began to roll, you may have found yourself wondering, How they hell are they going to continue this franchise? After all, the theme park turns out to be a rather massive disaster after the Indomnius rex gets through with it, and it’s pretty hard to imagine anyone bankrolling the place to get back on its feet. What you may not noticed, however, is that the movie actually does do a very clever job of setting up a Jurassic Park 5/Jurassic World 2, and it’s all thanks to the exit of
BD Wong’s Dr. Henry Wu, and the concept of the proliferation of technology.
When I had the chance to chat with co-writer/director
Colin Trevorrow about
Jurassic World last weekend, he revealed to me some fascinating details about his ideas for an upcoming sequel. Thinking about Dr. Wu’s rather mysterious exit from the movie - hopping on to a helicopter with a case full of dinosaur embryos – I asked the filmmaker if his departure had anything to do with future plans for the franchise, and he explained not only what he was thinking in terms of plot and theme, but also revealed a key line that wound up not making the final cut of the movie. Said
Trevorrow,
I feel like that was something that we did in terms of plot that opens up a potential sequel, but I think there’s things that we did in terms of theme that might be more viable. There’s actually a line we cut from the movie, and sometimes I wonder if I should have… but in that scene with BD Wong and Irrfan Kahn, he used to say, ‘How long do you think you can control it? We won’t always be the only ones who can make a dinosaur.’
Similar to how
Jurassic World was partially inspired by the idea of a young kid playing with his phone and being unimpressed by a Tyrannosaurus rex standing right in front of him, Colin Trevorrow noted that there’s a way to take the concept of proliferation of technology in our current world and applying it to a future Jurassic Park 5. Said the director,
I thought, that idea, I want to hold it, but that idea to me is a big idea and you know? When we look at various technologies, they go open source at some point, and they proliferate - and I think of a world… a Jurassic World. I changed the title for a reason. It’s not just the name of a theme park, where we coexist with these animals in the way that we do now with other animals in the planet. Don’t go into the jungle! There’s raptors in there! And so there are all kinds of interests who have the ability to make these animals for various needs and purposes. There is potential there.
Some of you will be quick to note that Colin Trevorrow has said that he doesn’t plan to come back and direct Jurassic Park 5, believing that the gig should be passed on to another filmmaker wanting to leave his stamp on the series, but the writer/director also explained to me that he definitely has plans to be involved with the franchise going forward, and merely believes that Jurassic Park is "going to benefit from a new voice every time out."