About
After the long wait, the park is open! Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment and Legendary Pictures have brought dinosaurs back to life with director Colin Trevorrow. Steven Spielberg returned as executive producer, with Frank Marshall, Patrick Crowley and Thomas Tull producing. Story by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver; screenplay by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver and Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly.
Twenty-two years after the infamous Jurassic Park incident, Jurassic World takes place on the island it all began: Isla Nublar. Under the new ownership of Masrani Global, InGen opened the dinosaur park in 2005. Since its opening, it has been smooth sailing.. but the shareholders now want more. Enter the Indominus Rex, a new genetically modified hybrid dinosaur born by greed. The Hybrid is expected to draw headlines that ‘regular dinosaurs’ allegedly no longer garner. Of course, creating a dinosaur with exaggerated predator features has its drawbacks. Namely, it breaks out, eats a lot of people, and all hell ensues. Like a true Jurassic film, this movie is a tale of mans hubris racking up a massive death toll while the dominoes fall. Also, Chris Pratt is a sexy raptor whisperer. What’s not to love!
Development
The 4th Jurassic Park film was originally planned for a 2004 release date, with Joe Johnston at the helm and the original cast returning. The 2004 date came and went. Thus began 10 years of development hell, where Jurassic Park 4 slipped off the map of reality. Like Hansel and Gretel, those attached to the production left a breadcrumb trail of news bites, assuring us a path to the films creation existed. It was always ‘news soon’. Yet soon seemed so far away. Many fans were driven to madness, madness usually associated with sleep deprivation.
While details were scarce of what exactly the film would revolve around, one thing kept reoccurring: they wanted to make a scarier film, and ‘tamper further with genetics’. In 2006 Aint It Cool News got their hands on an early JP4 script by John Sayles. The script featured a new protagonist by the name of Nick Harris hired by John Hammond to return to Isla Nublar and obtain the Barbasol Can with the Dino DNA – so others wouldn’t get their hands on it. Nevermind how Hammond or anyone else knew it existed over 10 years later. Alas, one thing leads to the next, and Nick is kidnapped by ‘Baron von Drax’ and brought to his secret castle in the alps where he is training a secret army of dinosaurs. Wait, what? Nick is forced to train a squadron of Raptors, who also have human and dog DNA mixed within – for obedience of course. Once trained, they use these raptors bust drug lords in South America. But soon the Barons evil plan is revealed, all while Dilophosaurus are bloody parajumping out of helicopters with an Ankylosaur. Following a testosterone infused bloodbath, the Baron is killed by a raptor he had stabbed with a sword after trying to betray and kill Nick. Oh, and I forgot: a hippie is eaten by a Mosasaurus earlier in the film, and then the JP3 Pteranodons show up at the end and eat a guy hiding in a tree in what reads like an after credits scene.
Needless to say, after AICN revealed that plot-line.. the project was put back on hold, and a new story was sought. However, the seeds of that stories DNA remained. Jurassic World protagonist Owen Grady, like Nick, was ex-military and trained raptors. And both featured genetically modified hybrids. But before things got better, they got worse. In 2008 concept art by Carlos Huante made its way onto the internet, and it painted a scary picture: The dinosaur human hybrid idea was doubled down on. Now, the concepts looked great from an artistic level, but horrifying for Jurassic film. Thankfully the idea was quickly ditched.
Fast forward to 2012. Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver were hired to write the script, and delivered a story that the studio and Steven Spielberg were finally happy with. In 2013 Colin Trevorrow was officially signed on to direct, and the film was announced for a 2014 date. However, Colin wanted to do a page 1 rewrite, and it soon became clear a 2015 release was more appropriate. And for the first time in 14 years, the date stuck.
Production
Filming began on April 10, 2014 at the Honolulu Zoo, and continued filming at various location is Hawaii including Oahu and Kauai. On June 6th, 2014 the production left Hawaii and moved to New Orleans, Louisiana.
While in Louisiana, the film moved to numerous sets, such as the massive 10 million dollar ‘Main Street’ built inside an abandoned Six Flags parking lot. To film the main street scenes thousands of extras were hired, and up to one thousand were on set at one time.
Other sets such as the old visitors center were inside ‘Big Easy Studio’, which was within a NASA campus , further aiding in much of the films secrecy.
After 78 days of filming, Jurassic World wrapped on August 5th, 2014.
Post-Production
Post production consisted mainly of VFX work by Industrial Light and Magic in collaboration with Image Engine.
During this time, Michael Giacchino scored the soundtrack.
Release
The Park Opened June 12th, 2015
