The Jurassic franchise is an oddity in the world of blockbuster filmmaking. Jurassic World is a reboot of the beloved Jurassic Park franchise, and THAT franchise is a relatively detached adaptation of the late Michael Crichton's classic science fiction novel. Given this odd Russian nesting doll situation, the Jurassic World series hasn't really acknowledged much from the Crichton-specific mythology, until now. Colin Trevorrow recently opened up about his work on the upcoming Jurassic World 2, and admitted that the 2018 sequel would lean heavily on dialogue used in the original book, saying:
You know, I did rely on [Michael] Crichton for a lot. I used a lot of Crichton dialogue.
Although Michael Crichton's original Jurassic Park novel has already been adapted for the silver screen, and although that adaptation is still in continuity with the Jurassic World franchise, there's still plenty of material for Colin Trevorrow to mine. This is primarily because Steven Spielberg's version of Jurassic Park is a somewhat loose interpretation of the novel. Individual scenes are faithfully recreated (such as the death of Dennis Nedry), but for the most part plenty of Crichton's material is still available for a filmmaker like Trevorrow to dig into and adapt as his new film continues to explore new avenues in this mythology.
With more dialogue from the original book set to become canon in the upcoming film, it seems quite likely that we will see Dr. Henry Wu (B.D. Wong) become an even more prominent figure going into the sequel. Wu plays a considerably larger role in Crichton's book than he does in Spielberg's original film, and Jurassic World made enormous strides with regards to ramping up the relevance of his character on the silver screen. He's probably the clearest connection between Jurassic World and the original novel, so we expect him to get some of his old lines back.
Of course, it's worth noting that Colin Trevorrow's recent comments on the Happy Sad Confused podcast could raise some concerns about a particular fan favorite Jurassic Park character. Ian Malcolm survives the events of the Jurassic Park film, but he dies in the original novel. With Jeff Goldblum slated to return as the character in Jurassic World 2, this has us wondering if Colin Trevorrow could potentially go all in and kill this beloved Jurassic figure.
That said, we're holding out hope that things won't go that far. Colin Trevorrow's description of the inspiration for Jurassic World 2 mostly revolves around snippets of dialogue from Michael Crichton's original book. He doesn't necessarily acknowledge that old plot points will be recycled in the upcoming film, meaning we can remain optimistic that everyone's favorite rock star mathematician will live to fight another day.
CinemaBlend will bring you more information related to the development of Jurassic World 2 as new details are made available to us. The sequel will hit theaters on June 22, 2018. Colin Trevorrow's latest project, The Book of Henry, is now in theaters, so make sure to check it out!
