(l-r) Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard in Jurassic World
(photo: Universal Pictures)
Jurassic World is the fourth installment in the Jurassic World film series, following the classic original Jurassic Park (1993), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), and Jurassic Park III (2001). The screenplay was co-written by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Derek Connolly, and Trevorrow. The film stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D’Onofrio, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Omar Sy, B. D. Wong, Irrfan Khan, and Judy Greer. Wong is the only actor from any of the previous films to appear in Jurassic World.
Twenty-two years after the events of Jurassic Park, Isla Nublar, an island located off Central America’s Pacific Coast near Costa Rica, now features a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, Jurassic World, as originally envisioned by John Hammond. This new park is owned by Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan), CEO of the Masrani Corporation. Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), a member of the park’s on-site staff, is a trainer of a group of Velociraptors, known as Blue, Charlie, Delta and Echo.
At the corporation’s request, the park’s geneticists create a hybrid dinosaur known as Indominus Rex (resembling a T. Rex in appearance and having the genetic material of Giganotosaurus, Rugops, Majungasaurus, and Carnotaurus, giving it its distinctive head ornamentation and ultra-tough bony osteoderms with horns placed above the eye orbit) to boost visitor attendance.
Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) is the park’s operations manager. Her nephews, Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray (Ty Simpkins), are visiting the island when the hybrid escapes and are subsequently caught up in the creature’s deadly rampage. It then becomes the responsibility of Owen and Jurassic World’s security team to attempt to contain the hybrid dinosaur before she can cause more damage.
Director Colin Trevorrow has stated that the Indominus Rex, the synthetic hybrid dinosaur at the center of the film’s story, is symbolic of consumer and corporate excess. Trevorrow stated that the dinosaur was “meant to embody [humanity’s] worst tendencies. “We’re surrounded by wonder and yet we want more, and we want it bigger, faster, louder, better. And in the world of the movie, the animal is designed based on a series of corporate focus groups.”
He also stated that “There’s something in the film about our greed and our desire for profit. The Indominus Rex, to me, is very much that desire, that need to be satisfied.” Film journalists have also noted of the parallels between the workings of the park in Jurassic World and the film and entertainment industry.
Steven Spielberg, director of the first two Jurassic World films, acts as executive producer as he did for the third film. Thomas Tull also acts as an executive producer, and his production company, Legendary Pictures, funded approximately 20 percent of the film’s budget. The film was produced by Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley, opened on June 11, 2015 in European countries and opens June 12 in North America, distributed by Universal Pictures; rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of science-fiction violence and peril), it runs 2 hours and 3 minutes.
