Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was a Jurassic Park sequel and is the fifth entry in the franchise. It was directed by J.A. Bayona and was released on May 21, 2018.

Plot

Three years after the Jurassic World theme park was closed down, Owen and Claire return to Isla Nublar to save the dinosaurs when they learn that a once dormant volcano on the island is active and is threatening to extinguish all life there. Along the way, Owen sets out to find Blue, his lead raptor, and discovers a conspiracy that could disrupt the natural order of the entire planet. Life has found a way, again.

Cast

• Chris Pratt as Owen Grady
• Bryce Dallas-Howard as Claire Dearing
• Rafe Spall as Eli Mills
• Justice Smith as Franklin Webb
• Daniella Pineda as Zia Rodriguez
• James Cromwell as Sir Benjamin Lockwood
• Toby Jones as Mr. Eversoll
• Ted Levine as Ken Wheatley
• BD Wong as Henry Wu
• Isabella Sermon as Maisie Lockwood
• Geraldine Chaplin as Iris
• Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm
• Peter Jason as Senator Sherwood

Development

When 2015’s Jurassic World was about to be made, producer Steven Spielberg told director Colin Trevorrow that he wanted several more Jurassic Park films made. Trevorrow later told Spielberg that he would only concentrate on directing one film but in May 2015, he said he wouldn’t be directing the sequel but would be involved in some way. Chris Pratt and Ty Simpkins had signed on for more Jurassic Park films. Trevorrow said the next film might not involve the Jurassic World theme park and that he would be interested in seeing it being made by one of many Spanish horror film directors.

Pre-Production

In July 2015, Universal announced the sequel would be released June 22, 2018 in the United States. Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly would again write the script and it would be produced by Frank Marshall. Trevorrow and Spielberg would serve as executive producers and Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas-Howard would reprise their roles. Later in 2015, B.D. Wong said he would be happy to return as Dr Henry Wu and Dallas-Howard said filming would begin in 2017. J.A. Bayona was rumoured to be directing the film but he chose to direct the World War Z sequel. He later dropped out of the World War Z sequel.

In April 2016, Jeff Goldblum said he wouldn’t be appearing as Ian Malcolm in the film but he was open to the possibility. Later that month, it had been announced that Bayona had signed on to direct the Jurassic World sequel. Bayona was approached for 2015’s Jurassic World but he felt there was not enough time for production. Trevorrow was impressed with Bayona’s 2007 horror film The Orphanage and Trevorrow showed him the second half of the script. Bayona was impressed with the haunted house style of it. In June 2016, Sam Neill was asked if he would return but he said he felt the series had moved on.

The Jurassic World sequel had the working title Ancient Futures and went into full pre-production in July 2016. Storyboards and concept art were being produced. Andy Nicholson was hired as the production designer and spent four weeks with Bayona discussing ideas for the film’s sets. Filming was to begin in Hawaii in February 2017. Trevorrow said Hawaii would be the main filming location but there were also doing some studio shooting in the UK. Trevorrow said the film will feature many new dinosaurs and the film would not involve militarised dinosaurs but they would be mentioned in the story.

When the dinosaurs are transported by boat to the mainland in the second half of the film, Ecuador and Peru were considered as potential filming locations. These places didn’t really work for the film’s story. Parts of the film were shot in England so England was considered. Spielberg felt that England was too far away from where Isla Nublar was supposed to be. They didn’t want to spend too much time on a boat and needed to get to some place quickly.

In September 2016, Bayona confirmed the new film would be the second chapter in a planned Jurassic World trilogy. Jurassic World composer Michael Giacchino said he would return as composer for the fifth film. Óscar Faura was also announced as the film’s cinematographer.

Writing

Steven Spielberg was very much involved in idea for Jurassic World but for the sequel, he left it to Trevorrow and Connolly to create their own. Two weeks after Jurassic World came out, both of them went on a road trip from Los Angeles to Vermont. During the trip, they started to work on the script and come up with a story. Concepts from Michael Crichton’s first two Jurassic Park novels were included as well as dialogue. Isla Nublar’s volcano was included in the first novel and that was featured in the script.

The producers felt it was important to include scenes showing Owen and Claire’s lives after what happened in Jurassic World. At the end of the film, Trevorrow had originally wanted to include more details about the dinosaurs roaming in the world but removed them to keep the story focused on the main story. The film includes elements from a rejected Jurassic Park IV draft from 2004, going back to Isla Nublar with the second half of the film set in a huge Gothic building on the mainland. Weaponizing the dinosaurs was also in the draft.

Trevorrow was going to include Jeff Goldblum’s character Ian Malcolm who appeared in The Lost World. Trevorrow discussed his ideas with Goldblum and he ended up using a lot of dialogue from Crichton’s Jurassic Park novel. The character of Lowery, who was the park control-room employee in Jurassic World, was also going to return in Fallen Kingdom but was replaced with a similar character called Franklin Webb. The characters of Zia and Franklin were young activists who believes in the cause and it was felt that Lowery would have been too cynical.

J.A. Bayona

When Bayona was hired, he began reading both of Crichton’s Jurassic Park novels and re-watched all the movies. Trevorrow and Connolly began working with Bayona in July 2016 to refine their script. The first suggestion Bayona made was to expand the opening underwater scene as it took a while before they got to the action scenes with the volcano. The director also expanded Blue’s surgery scene and added an action scene on board of the Arcadia. He felt the scenes was too lengthy on a boat with nothing happening so a scene was devised with Owen and Claire getting blood from the T-Rex.

Trevorrow said the film would be more suspenseful and scarier than Jurassic World. Bayona said the first half of Fallen Kingdom takes place on an island while the second half moves into a different environment that is more suspenseful, claustrophobic and has a gothic element. In the original draft, dinosaurs were going to be sold and Bayona’s idea was to have the sale changed to an auction to show the greed of the characters.

Casting

Casting began for the role of the nine year old girl in October 2016. 2,500 girls were interviewed but the part went to Isabella Sermon. Tom Holland was in talks for a role at one point but didn’t think he would be available for filming. By the end of 2016, Toby Jones, Rafe Spall and Justice Smith were cast. Daniella Pineda, Ted Levine and James Cromwell were cast at the beginning of 2017. Pineda had auditioned seven times before she got the role. B.D. Wong was confirmed to reprise his role as Dr. Henry Wu. During the casting process, the title Ancient Futures was used and instead of dinosaurs, references to lions and bears were used. Geraldine Chaplin, who had appeared in Bayona’s previous films, joined the cast. In April 2017, it was confirmed Jeff Goldblum would reprise his role as Dr. Ian Malcolm.

Production

Filming began February 24, 2017 and a lot of the filming took place at Pinewood Studios in England. After filming finished there, production moved to Hawaii. Scenes in the film showing Isla Nublar were filmed there. There was a post-credits scene set at the Paris Las Vegas resort where Pteranodons fly around the Eiffel Tower. Some scenes in the film were going to be shot at the Brecon Beacons in Wales but this ultimately didn’t happen.

Fallen Kingdom is the first Jurassic Park film to be shot in CinemaScope with a 2.40:1 aspect ratio as well as filmed exclusively digitally using Arri Alexa 65 cameras. During filming and in between takes, Bayona used to play music and sound effects on the set to inspire the actors. Bayona and Chris Pratt talked about every scene his character Owen was in and many of Chris Pratt’s ideas were used in the film.

When they were filming the characters running in Hawaii, the scene was filmed using the Edge Arm which was a stabilized camera that was attached to a crane. This was mounted to a truck and was driven alongside the actors. This allowed the scenes to be filmed steadily over rough terrain. At one point, Claire and Franklin are riding in a Jurassic World gyrosphere – this was shot in England and at Kualoa Ranch in Oahu, Hawaii. As before, the Edge Arm was used when the gyrosphere was hauled on a trailer. In England, an outdoor rollercoaster was built with a 40-foot drop for the scene where the gyrosphere falls off a cliff into water. The last part of the scene was shot at Pinewood Studios where a huge tank was built filled with water. Owen has to break open the gyrosphere underwater and rescue Claire and Franklin. Fives takes were done over five days and they were all merged together for one shot.

When filming began in England, it took place at the Langley Business Centre in Slough where they filmed the scene taking blood from the T-Rex. The diaries of Owen training the raptors which were mostly improvised by Chris Pratt. Some scenes were filmed at East Berkshire College in Berkshire, at Hartland Park in Fleet, Hampshire and at Loch Long in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The film’s opening scene was shot there during the night with rain machines and helicopters.

Some scenes were filmed at Hawley Common in Hampshire including the outside of Lockwood’s mansion and the loading dock when the dinosaurs were brought to the mainland. While the exterior of the Arcadia ship was created purely through CGI by Industrial Light & Magic, the inside was built at Pinewood Studios. After filming was finished there, it was repurposed and rebuilt as the Lockwood Mansion rooftop. Some filming took place outside the Cragside country house in Northumberland for the exterior of Lockwood Mansion.

Filming in the United Kingdom ended June 10, 2017 before moving to Hawaii. Filming in Hawaii began June 13, 2017 and lasted over 25 days. Filming locations included Dillingham Airfield, Pua’ena Point and Heʻeia Kea Small Boat Harbor which was the Isla Nublar dock. Filming took place at the He’eia jungle for scenes where Owen is searching for Blue. This is where Owen discovers an overturned Ford Explorer from the original Jurassic Park. Filming moved to Kualoa Ranch featuring the scene outside the radio tower bunker. A lot of the volcanic special effects were digitally created. When filming, cat litter on fire was used to give the actors something to react to.

The Main Street part of the Jurassic World theme park had to be rebuilt for Fallen Kingdom. It had originally been built in Louisiana but was dismantled after filming. It was rebuilt on Police Beach in Hawaii and took three months to be built. The Visitor Center was not rebuilt due to its large size. Filming also took place at Oahu’s Hālona Blowhole. Filming finished on July 8, 2017.

Dinosaurs

Fallen Kingdom features more dinosaurs than any previous film in the series. Bayona wanted to include several new dinosaurs never seen in earlier films including Allosaurus, Baryonyx, Carnotaurus, Sinoceratops and Stygimoloch. In the original script, there was going to be a black Indoraptor and a white Indoraptor. The black one would have killed the white one in the film. The idea for two of them were scrapped. Dilophosaurus was also in the script where Owen and Claire would encounter it in a cage on the Arcadia. This was scrapped as the scenes on the boat already felt too long according to Bayona.

The dinosaurs in Fallen Kingdom were made using both animatronics and CGI. Special effects artist Neal Scanlan was the film’s creature effects supervisor, working on the animatronics, while Vickery and Alex Wuttke were responsible for supervising the visual effects. 52 animators at Industrial Light & Magic across Vancouver and London worked on the movie. ILM did a lot of research to creature the dinosaurs, including speaking to palaeontologists. Dinosaur expert John Hankla from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, was an advisor on the film. Hankla also provided several dinosaur fossil recreations for the film.

Fallen Kingdom also includes more animatronic dinosaurs than any other Jurassic Park film. Five animatronic dinosaurs were created while Jurassic World only had one. Scanlon spent more than eight months at Pinewood Studios with a crew of 35 people making the dinosaurs. The T-Rex was the first animatronic they need for filming – a full-scale head and shoulders. ILM sent Scanlon a model of the T-Rex from Jurassic World and he used that to make a full-scale 3D print. The T-Rex was used in the scene where Owen and Claire try to get blood from it on the Arcadia. The first parts of the scene were animatronics but the ending of it was done with CGI.

An animatronic of Blue, the velociraptor, was created for the scene when it’s on the operating table. 12 puppeteers were hidden under the table controlling various aspects of it when filming was happening. Two versions of the scene were shot, one with Blue and one without, and they were combined together.

The Indoraptor was created with a mix of CGI and practical effects. A physical head, neck, shoulders, foot and arm were created for close-up shots. When it stands on its two legs, it’s almost 3 metres tall. Black was chosen as the colour of the creature as director Bayona thought it would be more frightening if it was standing in the dark and all you could see was its eyes and teeth.

Post-Production

The Brachiosaurus we see dying in the volcano eruption is supposed to be the same one we saw in Jurassic Park. It was created using the same animations from the first film and was the last shot of the movie to be finished in post-production. The team had difficulty trying to get it right and worked throughout the night to perfect the scene.

The original cut came out at 2 hours, 45 minutes and it was trimmed to 2 hours, 8 minutes. One of the scenes that was cut was a scene showing Zia that she was a lesbian. The scenes weren’t included on the home media releases. The scene showing the Pteranodons was also cut but was re-inserted as a post-credits scene before Fallen Kingdom was released.

Music

The film’s score was composed by Michael Giacchino, who also composed Jurassic World. He incorporated John Williams’ themes from earlier Jurassic Park films into Fallen Kingdom‘s score.

Marketing

The first full length trailer for Fallen Kingdom was released December 7, 2017. Universal later launched a website for the Dinosaur Protection Group which included information about the group and their determination to save the island’s dinosaurs. A second trailer for the film aired during Super Bowl LII on February 4, 2018. The third full trailer was released on April 18th, 2018.

Studio Universal spent $145 million on advertisements promoting Fallen Kingdom as well as a global marketing campaign by its partners valued at an extra $185 million. The campaign included nine partners—Dairy Queen, Doritos, Dr Pepper, Ferrero SpA, Jeep, Juicy Fruit, Kellogg’s, M&M’s, and Skittles and they aired television adverts and sold products to promote the movie.

Toy companies Mattel, Lego, and Funko created toys based on the film. Mattel made dinosaurs and action figures, as well as Barbie dolls featuring ones that looked like Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas-Howard. Lego released many Lego sets and characters based on the film. A video game, Jurassic World Evolution, was released alongside the film. A two-part virtual reality miniseries titled Jurassic World: Blue, created by Felix & Paul Studios and ILM, was released for Oculus VR headsets, featuring the velociraptor Blue on Isla Nublar when volcanic eruption occurred.

Release

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom had its premiere at the WiZink Center in Madrid, Spain, on May 21, 2018. The film’s international theatrical release began in Singapore and Malaysia on June 7th, before coming to the United Kingdom, India, Italy, South Korea and Angola on June 8th. The film was released in the United States on June 22, 2018.

Box Office

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom made a total of $417.7 million in North America, and $892.7 million overseas, for a total worldwide gross of $1.310 billion. Its production budget was $170 million.

United States and Canada

Before the film came out, the projections were that the movie would make between $130-150 million in its opening weekend in North America. It was released on June 22, 2018 in 4,475 theatres and grossed $58.7 million in its opening day. It ended up grossing $148 million in its opening weekend. In its second weekend, it made $60.9 million, with a drop of 59%. In its third weekend, it made $28.6 million.

Overseas

Fallen Kingdom was projected to earn $130-$145 million in its opening weekend. It exceeded this and earned $151.1 million with the largest markets being South Korea ($27.2 million), UK ($19.9 million), France ($10 million), Spain ($9.5 million) and Germany ($9.1 million). The film was released in China on June 15th and earned $34.4 million in its opening day.

Critical Response

As of July 2021, 47% of the 428 reviews compiled by Rotten Tomatoes are positive. The website’s critical consensus reads, “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom adds another set piece-packed entry to the blockbuster franchise, although genuinely thrilling moments are in increasingly short supply.” Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “A−” on an A+ to F scale. Some critics praised the film’s visuals and its break from the other Jurassic Park films with its darker tone, but received criticism about its screenplay and some had felt the franchise had run its course.

Home Media

The movie was released digitally on September 4, 2018, and on Blu-ray, DVD, Blu-ray 3D and 4K Blu-ray on September 18, 2018.

Production Stills