Jurassic World: Chris Pratt Talks Up His Character, Locations Revealed, And The Movie Will Shoot On Film
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Jurassic World, the fourth installment in a franchise that hasn’t turned out a new movie since 2001, is coming together nicely. There’s a young, interesting director, in Colin Trevorrow, and a cast headlined a guy who is about to become a huge movie star, in the person of Chris Pratt, who also called Jurassic Park his Star Wars. As we move closer to the start of production, which is reportedly about six weeks away, more details are beginning to emerge. Pratt has shed some light on his character—and in turn on the script—we’ve learned where the filming is scheduled to go down, and we have an answer to the film versus digital question.
In addition to being totally pumped about being a part of this, Pratt, hyping up The LEGO Movie at MTV, provided some details about his role, and how the script fits into the larger franchise. When asked if he was more akin Jeff Goldblum’s cynical mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm, or Sam Neill’s cautiously enthusiastic archeologist Dr. Alan Grant, Pratt says his character falls somewhere in the middle. He says, “He’s got a little of both. He’s got little bits of the Goldblum cynicism, but also the Sam Neill excitement and the wonder in the biology. So it’s a combination.”
That’s sounds like a perfect mix for Pratt. We’ve seen him do straight and serious and take care of business, but at the same time, it would feel like a waste he wasn’t allowed the freedom to show his comedy chops as well. Trevorrow also handled the script along with writing partner Derek Connolly, and their previous outing, Safety Not Guaranteed, strikes a good balance between the dramatic and the funny.
One of the big questions hovering around Jurassic World is why, after three attempts at this, would anyone think it’s a good idea to bring dinosaurs back to life and build an amusement park around them? That’s a valid question. As we’ve seen, it hasn’t worked out particularly well in the past. From what Pratt says, this question is answered, and answered in a way that is both satisfying and clever. He says:
What I liked about it was that it answers the question of, ‘Why would you do that?’ How do you suspend disbelief to be like, ‘Oh yes, let’s make this mistake again’? ‘We haven’t learned our lesson about dinosaurs, we should definitely live with them and see how that works out.’ You know, after like three tries at it! They answer the question really well through the script. Colin did a great job of writing it, justifying it, and, kind of, in his own way, having fun with that. Anybody who goes in with that question will be really amused, the way I was, about how they answer that.
At this point we know who the dinosaurs are going to get to chase after in Jurassic World, or at least the key figures. Aside from Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Nick Robinson, Jake Johnson, and Ty Simpkins will all be on the run from the prehistoric predators. But now we know where the production plans to stage all of this action. According to Midweek, the production will spend a total of six weeks filming in Hawaii, four on Oahu in April, followed by two on Kauai. That doesn’t sound like a bad gig, getting paid to fight pretend dinosaurs in a tropical paradise.
This is a bit of a homecoming for the franchise, too. Steven Spielberg filmed Jurassic Park, and the first sequel, on both Oahu and Kauai. Maybe Trevorrow is trying to capture some of that mojo by returning to the dinosaur’s old stomping grounds.
While the 50th State will serve as a stand in for the tropical jungle exteriors of Costa Rica and other equatorial regions, there interiors will be filmed in the Big Easy. The Times-Picayune in New Orleans reports that Jurassic World will spend a whopping 11 weeks doing their business down south, presumably indoors in well air-conditioned sound stages. That stint is scheduled to kick off on June 2. Terminator: Genesis will also be in town at the same time, so in a perfect world we’ll get behind the scenes footage of dinosaurs fighting robots.
This one final bit of news might seem a bit out of place given the ever increasing digitization of filmmaking, but Jurassic World will shoot on film. Trevorrow recently posted this tweet:
Honored to be working with cinematographer John Schwartzman on Jurassic World, shooting this April on 35mm and 65mm film. @Kodak @Panavision
— Colin Trevorrow (@colintrevorrow) February 6, 2014
In a time when major studios like Paramount aren’t even going to release their movies on film, this move should give Jurassic World a similar appearance to the previous three installments, which were all shot on film.
Even though it hasn’t started filming yet, Universal Pictures has already scheduled Jurassic World for a June 12, 2015 release.
