Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - Full Production Notes

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - Full Production Notes

UNIVERSAL PICTURES and AMBLIN ENTERTAINMENT Present

In Association with LEGENDARY PICTURES / PERFECT WORLD ENTERTAINMENT

CHRIS PRATT

BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD

RAFE SPALL

JUSTICE SMITH

DANIELLA PINEDA

JAMES CROMWELL

TOBY JONES

TED LEVINE

BD WONG

ISABELLA SERMON

GERALDINE CHAPLIN

and

JEFF GOLDBLUM

Executive Producers

STEVEN SPIELBERG

COLIN TREVORROW

Produced by

FRANK MARSHALL, P.G.A.

PATRICK CROWLEY

BELÉN ATIENZA, P.G.A.

Based on Characters Created by

MICHAEL CRICHTON

Written by

DEREK CONNOLLY & COLIN TREVORROW

Directed by

J.A. BAYONA

Production Information

It’s been three years since theme park and luxury resort Jurassic World was destroyed by dinosaurs out of containment.  Isla Nublar now sits abandoned by humans while the surviving dinosaurs fend for themselves in the jungles.

          When the island’s dormant volcano begins roaring to life, Owen (CHRIS PRATT) and Claire (BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD) mount a campaign to rescue the remaining dinosaurs from this extinction-level event.  Owen is driven to find Blue, his lead raptor who’s still missing in the wild, and Claire has grown a respect for these creatures she now makes her mission.  Arriving on the unstable island as lava begins raining down, their expedition uncovers a conspiracy that could return our entire planet to a perilous order not seen since prehistoric times.

With all of the wonder, adventure and thrills synonymous with one of the most popular and successful series in cinema history, this all-new motion-picture event sees the return of favorite characters and dinosaurs—along with new breeds more awe-inspiring and terrifying than ever before. 

Welcome to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. 

Stars Pratt and Howard return alongside executive producers STEVEN SPIELBERG and COLIN TREVORROW for the epic action-adventure.  Directed by J.A. BAYONA (The Impossible, The Orphanage), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is written by Jurassic World’s director, Trevorrow, and its co-writer, DEREK CONNOLLY.  Producers FRANK MARSHALL and PAT CROWLEY once again partner with Spielberg and Trevorrow in leading the filmmakers for this stunning installment.  BELÉN ATIENZA joins the team as a producer. 

The accomplished group is joined by co-stars JAMES CROMWELL (Babe) as Benjamin Lockwood, a wealthy entrepreneur who was Dr. John Hammond’s partner in creating Jurassic Park; JUSTICE SMITH (The Get Down) as Franklin Webb, Claire’s whip-smart hacker in the Dinosaur Protection Group, who is more comfortable being the “guy in the chair” at home base than in the middle of action; DANIELLA PINEDA (The Detour) as Dr. Zia Rodriguez, a genius paleo-veterinarian whose abilities in this archaic sub-specialty have never been tested on live dinosaurs; RAFE SPALL (Prometheus) as Eli Mills, Lockwood’s right-hand man who recruits Claire and Owen to bring the dinosaurs to a private reserve; TED LEVINE (Shutter Island) as Wheatley, a tough-as-nails mercenary that Mills puts in charge to run the ground operation at Isla Nublar; TOBY JONES (Captain America series) as Eversoll, brought in by Mills to supervise the operations at Lockwood estate after the rescue mission; GERALDINE CHAPLIN (A Monster Calls) as Iris, housekeeper of the estate and keeper of family secrets; and ISABELLA SERMON, who makes her debut as Lockwood’s infectiously optimistic granddaughter, Maisie, a 10-year-old who has lived at the mansion her entire life.. 

Series stalwarts BD WONG and JEFF GOLDBLUM reprise their roles as, respectively, Dr. Henry Wu and Dr. Ian Malcolm.  Wu, a corrupt geneticist whose name is synonymous with InGen, is as near-sighted as ever in his pursuit of scientific breakthroughs.  For his part, eccentric mathematician Malcolm first predicted doom for Hammond’s Jurassic Park a quarter of a century prior.  His unparalleled grasp on chaos theory and those who abuse power will prove invaluable…especially as Owen and Claire uncover a most deadly endgame.

Bayona’s army of creative talents are led by cinematographer OSCAR FAURA (A Monster Calls, The Orphanage), production designer ANDY NICHOLSON (Gravity, Captain America: The First Avenger), costume designer SAMMY SHELDON DIFFER (Ex Machina, Imitation Game), Oscar^®-winning creature effects creative supervisor NEAL SCANLAN (Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) and Oscar^®-winning composer MICHAEL GIACCHINO (Up, Jurassic World).  The Jurassic Park theme is by five-time Academy Award^® winner JOHN WILLIAMS (Star Wars saga, Harry Potter series).

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was filmed in the United Kingdom and on the Hawaiian islands.

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

Goodbye, Isla Nublar:

Fallen Kingdom Is Born

It may seem difficult to believe, but when the filmmakers behind 2015’s Jurassic World began its development, they had no idea that their labor of love would become one of the top-five grossing movies of all time.  For Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow, who also co-wrote the first chapter—and returns as co-writer and now executive producer of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom—the relaunch of the series that has captivated him since he was a boy has long been imagined as a trilogy.  Alongside co-writer Derek Connolly, he has taken great pride in bringing the cautionary tales of Michael Crichton and world creation of Steven Spielberg to a delightfully dangerous and unexpected new level.

Once the global press tour wrapped and riveted audiences celebrated this landmark achievement, it was time to take a deep breath…and then get back to work.  “About two weeks after Jurassic World came out, I had been living in Los Angeles with my family for the year and had to drive back to our home in Vermont,” recounts Trevorrow.  “I asked Derek if he would ride with me, so we could use that cross-country trip to talk about where the story could go next.  I had a very basic set of ideas I wanted to present to him—in a place that we could think freely and just get weird with what the future could be.”

Buoyed with confidence at the film’s rip-roaring success and Spielberg’s confidence in their narrative arc, the pair hit the road to discuss what was next for former raptor trainer Owen, operations manager Claire and the thousands of displaced dinosaurs roaming the land and flying above Isla Nublar.  “This time around, Steven said, ‘Show me what you think this can be, where you think these characters should go and where we should take them,’” shares Trevorrow.  “So we drove to Vermont and, on the way, came up with the story that is Fallen Kingdom.” 

While Jurassic World took the park that was only a promise and brought it to awe-striking, terrifying life, Trevorrow knew the next chapter could and should tackle much darker themes.  The storyteller who first made a splash with the celebrated Safety Not Guaranteed has long been curious by what it means to exist within paradoxical time.  “These dinosaurs were of this Earth 65 million years ago, and now they’re in a place that is completely foreign to them,” he says.  “I thought there was a way we could tell a story that would identify the human angle.  How would you feel if you were brought into a world that you didn’t belong to…just for the satisfaction of others?  That was a realm we hadn’t gone to before, and it was something we knew these movies would benefit from.” 

As the writing partners designed this second act, they strategized where they could take the audience.  Through the greediness of investors playing God and park guests throwing caution and cash toward reason, Jurassic World had been unceremoniously obliterated.  The writers knew there was fertile ground to explore off island, and they’d been quietly planting the seeds for years.  “What would be the result of that destruction; what would be the step beyond it?” asks Trevorrow.  “Fortunately, there were a lot of clues we planted in the first movie; in the film itself, on maps and on the website—in places people wouldn’t think to look for hints about the next two movies—there’s information embedded in all of them.” 

Few characters are closer to Trevorrow than Claire Dearing and Owen Grady, the fiery former lovers who are seemingly destined to pine—and grouse—after each other from afar.  Discussing how the heroes have evolved, he notes: “We thought a lot about where Claire would be a few years later, and how she’d have a lot of guilt, regret and responsibility—which she would take and put it into action.  Claire knows there’s a natural disaster that is about to occur on the island—one that has posed a question to the world: ‘Do we let these animals die, or do we save them?’  She’s the person who feels the most responsible for rescuing the dinosaurs. 

“On the other side, we have Owen, who is responsible for proving that raptors can follow orders.  He knows there is a capability for them to serve the same purpose as animals that have been used throughout history for war,” Trevorrow continues.  “That opens its own Pandora’s Box.  We have these two characters who are the mother and father of the new world.  They’re the parents of this slowly building biological disaster begun by John Hammond.  It was important for us to find a way to weave Hammond into the story and to connect them together, as well as tell more about the history of how Jurassic Park began.”

The extraordinary dinosaurs are as much players as Claire and Owen.  Nowhere is this more evident than with Blue, the Velociraptor to which Owen has had a deep connection since she was a hatchling.  After a fierce battle with littermate Echo—one that left Blue with a scarred lip—she established her dominance among her pack.  Once Owen pretended to be injured during her training, Blue showed her capacity for empathy.  A virtual enigma among dinosaurs, she is equal parts vicious and nurturing; sadly, in the post Jurassic World era, she is also last of her kind.

For the writers, it was crucial to bring back this fully fledged creature to which we have all grown quite attached.  That storytelling level was extraordinary in Spielberg’s eyes.  “Blue has become a real character that we have imprinted on,” he reflects.  “In the first movie, John Hammond liked to be around every birth, every hatchling, because he wanted the animal to imprint on him.  In this case, the audience has imprinted on Blue, which allows Blue to become a major character that we really care about in this second film.”

It was crucial to the narrative to open the series up and introduce a new set of dinosaurs from multiple epochs.  From a Baryonyx and a Carnotaurus, to a crazy little bull-in-a-china-shop called a Stygimoloch, the writers brought more colorful creatures to Fallen Kingdom than ever before.  As if it that wasn’t enough, they imagined a genetically designed monstrosity known as the Indoraptor.  Its DNA an unholy mix of Velociraptor, Indominus rex and who knows what else Dr. Wu spliced into its codons, this creature is not deadly because of size—it’s due to his intelligence, speed and ability to follow orders…when he so chooses.  Indoraptor is, without a doubt, the perfect weapon.

There will never be a Jurassic film without our star T. rex, if the filmmakers have anything to say about it.  “The T. rex is also back,” Trevorrow shares.  “We’ve been following this same character since the beginning; she’s the same T. rex that was in Jurassic Park and in Jurassic World.  She is iconic—not just because she’s a T. rex, but because she’s this T. rex.” 

Taking the Reins:

Bayona Joins Team Jurassic

When it came to the next chapter of the trilogy, the producers turned to acclaimed Spanish filmmaker Juan Antonio “J.A.” Bayona to join their quest.  Known for work as deeply intimate as it is sweeping in its storytelling, the director was eager to join a production that would be his biggest challenge to date.  We begin as Bayona recalls memories of the epic that started it all: “Like many people of my generation, there was a sense of wonder when I saw Jurassic Park.  There is something absolutely engaging about creatures that inhabited our planet millions of years ago, and the idea of bringing them back from extinction is fascinating.  It is as playful as it is genius an idea for a saga.  The first time I saw the Brachiosaurus on screen, I knew that everything was possible.”

That, and it is quite difficult to say no to the man whose name is synonymous with summer blockbuster…and indelibly linked to sense film memories.  Bayona recalls a particularly good day: “It was Steven Spielberg who offered me the opportunity, and I feel blessed to be working with him.  I admire him profoundly.  Also, having shot The Impossible, The Orphanage and A Monster Calls, the opportunity of an adventure movie felt like a lot of fun for me; the timing was perfect.”

Bayona appreciated that Trevorrow, whose years-long passion is all-things Jurassic, was willing to partner with him in bringing the new installment to the big screen.  “Colin pitched the story for this second episode in a trilogy, and that got me so excited,” the director relays.  “Since that day, we have been working together to incorporate my vision.  I love playing with suspense to engage the audience; I like intensity and making people feel the total experience.”

Always humble, Bayona welcomed the opportunity for collaboration.  “When I came aboard, I knew I was to take care of Steven and Colin’s baby.  As a director, I can contribute a lot of things to the story, to the energy and to the tone.  However, I’m also aware the Jurassic saga is loved by millions, so I it was important to work closely with them to ensure we are bringing the audiences new, exciting experiences…while keeping the soul of the franchise.”

Bayona states that the imagination of his younger self was ignited by the prescient genius of Dr. Crichton.  “What I always loved about Michael Crichton’s books is that, apart from making you enjoy a great big adventure, they make you think about moral repercussions of the advancement of science.  It is not science-fiction anymore; the reality of these advancements gives an audience immediate empathy.  Twenty-five years ago, the debate about the moral limits of science was just beginning; today it is daily news.  Colin and Derek knew we needed to be talking about this, and it makes our movie extremely relevant.”

Bayona and Trevorrow worked closely throughout production, and both men were open to having their ideas tested and retested by a fellow director.  “It is a unique scenario, and I’m very proud of the way that J.A. and I were able to collaborate,” reflects Trevorrow.  “To be able to have two filmmakers—who are inherently visual—constantly trying to embrace the other’s idea has resulted in something special.  J.A. and I are very different, but I believe the result of what we’ve done is entirely unique.  He has an innate sensibility for the elements that make Jurassic movies work.  He has a spirituality to his films and a sense of family…but also families going through traumatic experiences together.”

Spielberg appreciated that Bayona was able to dovetail his signature voice into a universe that has a distinct style of its own.  “One thing that the films in the Jurassic series have in common is that they are created by filmmakers who love the craft of filmmaking,” reflects Spielberg.  “Juan Antonio did an amazing job through his art in being able to make Fallen Kingdom a little bit like the first movie I directed, a little bit like the last movie that Colin directed…but still make it 100 percent his.  Because he’s a real filmmaker who has a real voice, he found a way not to hijack and change the tone or mood or style of Jurassic Park, but a way to make this his own Jurassic World film.  We were blessed that he brought his voice to our series.  He’s just knocked it out of the ballpark.”

For veteran filmmaker Frank Marshall, who returns to produce, the dynamic appeal of this partnership was a no-brainer.  “Colin and Derek have taken elements we are familiar with and pushed them to a new level.  This film has such huge scale.  We begin in the park itself, on this vast environment with volcanoes, as well as underwater and within escape-sequences.  Up until now, humans and dinosaurs have been separate.  In Fallen Kingdom, we see a lot more interaction.  We’ve brought back Blue, Mosasaurus, T. rex and others you will remember, plus a lot of new dinosaurs you’ve never seen before.”

Marshall appreciated that Bayona could bring to the project a sensibility that was unlike anything the series had seen: “J.A. has a wonderful, cinematic vision in which he creates incredible worlds and wonderfully succinct characters.  It is not just about the dinosaurs, it is about the characters.  He brings a vision and excitement to the characters as they pass through Jurassic World.”

Inarguably, the biggest stars of any Jurassic film are the stunning dinosaurs, an elegant brainchild of top artists working in their respective fields of animatronic creatures and visual effects.  “We have surrounded J.A. with highly experienced people who have a done a great deal of large-scale production,” gives Marshall.  “ILM worked very closely with him; they always push the envelope on technology, and it is exciting to see the new toys we have in our toolbox to create these scenes with the dinosaurs.  We also have Neal Scanlan, who has imagined wonderful creatures over the years, creating our animatronics.  Fans enjoy our use of real creatures and for the actors, it is great for them to interact with an ‘actual’ dinosaur.”

Patrick Crowley, who returns alongside Marshall to produce the new installment, speaks to the solid foundation and caretaking that benefits the franchise.  “The key element we have going for us in this trilogy is the involvement of Colin Trevorrow and Steven Spielberg.  Steven is the grand master, in charge of making sure that what we do reflects the original intentions and carries out the themes that he set up a long time ago.  Colin, Steven, and now J.A., understand the responsibility of upping tension and danger.  This movie is full of things people haven’t seen—places, dinosaurs that have never been on screen, and brand-new experiences.”

Crowley lauds that his director has given the established franchise just the energy boost that everyone needed.  “The Impossible was the experience we all felt made J.A. a worthy candidate do this movie.  We knew he could handle the scope and scale.  He had a tiny budget, but his specialty is creating tension and bringing the same feeling to a Jurassic movie that Colin brought to Jurassic World.”

For Crowley, a Jurassic movie would not be complete without an abundance of speciation.  It’s also a source of pride to the crew to outdo itself, without dwarfing the narrative.  “In this movie, you will see more dinosaurs than you’ve ever seen before,” the producer proclaims.  “You will also see dinosaurs much closer in proximity to human beings.  It’s a very unique feeling, involving totally different action.  We spend a lot of time with Blue, who is the film’s heart.  We also have a brand new dinosaur called the Indoraptor, who is a genetically modified creation of Dr. Wu.  He is smart, incredibly physical, can move like a lizard and get into places other dinosaurs were too big to get into; he is really, really nasty.”

This scientific miracle/abomination was a particular delight to Spielberg.  He laughs: “This is the first Jurassic movie that I could truthfully say where we have a monster.  The Indoraptor is a dinosaur, but it’s really a monster.  That makes Fallen Kingdom the first real hybrid between a dinosaur film and a monster movie.”

For her part, producer Belén Atienza, Bayona’s right-hand filmmaking partner, was thrilled to join the group of seasoned filmmakers on this journey that’s been 25 years in the making.  When discussing their experience of working on Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, her attitude echoes Bayona’s boyish sense of wonder.  “It felt like we were kids again because it reminds us of our childhood,” she reflects.  “The wonder of dinosaurs, the adventures, jungle, mysteries, action and suspense was just astonishing.”  That energy would prove infectious on set.  “From the very first moment we began to work on this project, it was all about how to squeeze every moment we could out of the film and bring it to the audience.”

Producer of all of Bayona’s features, Atienza shares a kindred spirit in executing engaging stories.  Of the process, she graciously notes: “The vision starts on the framing of the scene.  It is all about the shot and work that’s been done months in advance: reading the scene, working out the shots…every camera move, speed and time you spend on each character.  On the day, there will be input from actors and other filmmakers, and we are always open to that.  Once you know what the scene is about, then it is all about making it better.”

Speaking to the style Bayona has honed over the years, she notes that Fallen Kingdom’s director is equal parts disciplined workman and mischievous storyteller: “He is always trying to find something special.  That is why there are playful sequences in all his movies, where you don’t really know what to expect next.  He wants three or four beats from every shot; it is quite complex, like a technical choreography that is instinctive in him.  At the same time, he is an artist who is incredibly invested.  It is a joy to see him work.”

Surviving Choices:

Favorite Characters Return

It’s impossible to think of a return Jurassic World without the electric pairing of Claire and Owen.  “Everyone loves that couple so much,” Bayona states.  “The chemistry between Bryce and Chris reminds me of classic Hollywood movies.  We had to go back there.  Chris created an amazing character, providing Owen with genuine charm and comedy.  He has an honest inner strength that somehow communicates to the audience that he will always do the right thing.”

Pratt shares what about this series continues to resonate with audiences: “The success of Jurassic World starts with the success of Jurassic Park.  The original movie is just so beloved.  It captured the imagination of an entire generation, and there was a world hungry to see a new version of this story…one with all the technological advancements that have been made in filmmaking since 1993.”

Working with Bayona proved a rewarding experience for Pratt.  “J.A. is a huge movie buff,” the performer says.  “He particularly loves a movie with an edge, and he’s bringing that to this film.  He is playing, not so much with what is there but what might be around the corner.  These movies are all about science, imagination and suspense.  J.A.’s a master.”

Very few in the Jurassic world can understand the brutal physicality of one of these films, so Pratt appreciated the chance to collaborate once again with Howard.  “I’m teamed with Bryce, who has an incredible work ethic; she is passionate about every step of the process.  Combine that partnership with our director’s vision, and we’ve got a pretty good handle on what we need to make this the best Jurassic adventure it can be.”

Claire and Owen have been living separate lives, but are reunited for a common goal.  While she has made it her mission to protect and save all the creatures, she knows that what will get Owen back on the island is the chance to rescue Blue, the Velociraptor to whom he has the closest connection.  “Much of what’s happened between Claire and Owen is unspoken, but they’ve gone through traumatic experiences together at Jurassic World and have each handled that differently,” reflects Pratt.  “Owen believes there is no way to make yourself feel better; you have to move on and live your life.  To bury yourself in guilt like Claire’s done is wrong, and for Owen to ignore what they’ve gone through is also flawed…so they need one another.  You see that these characters are drawn to one another and destined to be together…but circumstances have not allowed that to happen.”

Pratt’s role required a great deal of stunt work, and there was many a night after filming that his bruised self fell into a deep sleep.  “This is more physical than the first movie,” Pratt says.  “There were a lot of stunts; I’ve rolled out of the back of trucks, gone diving, ran down mountains and did underwater stunts.  We’ve also got huge fight sequences. They’ve taken the action-hero element that worked in the first movie and quadrupled it.”

No stranger to physical roles, the performer walks us through one of his favorite stunts of the shoot: When Owen chases just behind Claire and Franklin in a gyrosphere that is rocketing off Isla Nublar and into the ocean.  When Owen dives to rescue them, he must use every bit of his military training and survival instinct to come out alive.  

Filmed in the underwater tank at Pinewood Studios, the sequence took five days to capture.  Pratt explains: “I loved the whole underwater sequence.  The creative concept was to film it in one shot, keep the focus as though we are inside the gyrosphere looking out.  We never cut from that point of view, and this thing is sinking.  Claire and Franklin are about to drown and Owen must swim down to break them out, but it doesn’t work.  Owen must swim back up to the surface, then come back down.  All this had to be done in elements, and it was like putting together a thousand-piece puzzle.  I loved the process of shooting piece by piece and watching this thing become stitched together.”

As Owen, Pratt has taken a pack of Velociraptors on a chase through the jungle and survived the vicious teeth of countless other creatures on the island.  But nothing could prepare Owen for the monstrous new dinosaur created by Dr. Wu: the Indoraptor, the most deadly creature to ever walk the planet.  “The Indoraptor opens the story up and gives us a hint at what the future holds for the Jurassic franchise.  You get the sense the Indoraptor is what the end goal was for InGen.  They have been developing this type of intelligence and cognitive design for raptors for years.  The latest development, the Indoraptor, is essentially bulletproof.  It attacks on command.  It has been designed as a deadly weapon of war and we see first-hand just how dangerous it is.  The prospect of these creatures in the wrong hands is terrifying.”

Bryce Dallas Howard returns to the role of Claire Dearing, a character who, like Owen, has been irrevocably changed by the disastrous events of three years ago.  “In Jurassic World, Claire goes on a very clear arc,” reflects Howard.  “You see who she is on the exterior, but you don’t know who she is on the inside.  By the end of the first film, you know what this person is really made of and can clearly see who she is.”

While Owen retreated into a life of solitude, Claire has done the complete opposite—creating the Dinosaur Protection Group (DPG), whose mission is to save the dinosaurs remaining on Isla Nublar.  “She is still dealing with the fact she needs to take responsibility for everything that happened,” Howard continues.  “She made a mistake she can never take back because she was a part of the creation of the Indominus rex; she wrote the check for that.  Now the world is a different place because of her actions.  She opened Pandora’s Box, and she can never close it again.  All that Claire wants to do is be on the right side of history.  It’s her cause and mission.”

Howard wanted to imbue her character with layers that are far-too-often absent in female characters in action films.  “They will be a damsel in distress or a strong heroic woman, and there’s no in-between.  What I love about Claire is that you don’t necessarily like her all the time, but you relate to her; you understand her and believe the fight in her.  Getting to play a woman who is determined and focused, while also at times being clumsy and self-righteous, is exciting because that’s a human being.”

Echoing Trevorrow and Bayona, Howard underscores that source material is crucially important to her; to that end, she drew choices for her character from Crichton’s cautionary tales.  “I’ve read a lot of Michael Crichton’s novels, and there are identifiable themes that run through all his writing.  Like any iconic sci-fi writer, he was preparing us for the future.  He was preparing us emotionally so that we can make the right choices based on our own humanity.  These are the questions Claire is dealing with: Is the humane choice to save the dinosaurs, or is it better to let nature take its course and allow the dinosaurs be destroyed?”

Howard was enthused that her director is just as passionate about these topics as she.  “J.A. is an incredible filmmaker and genius when it comes to frightening people.  He just understands suspense, particularly with creatures and monsters.  Often, what’s so frightening is when you don’t see the monster until the very, very last minute.  Just at the right moment the monster is exposed in a way that will haunt you for the rest of your life…but you love it.  He is a hard-core cinephile and someone who has reverence for the greatest visionaries in storytelling history.  He is part of a team who is creating the next chapter of this story together.”

Although Howard has been acting in films since she was a child, her director’s ability to surprise continued to impress her throughout production.  “There are a couple of things that J.A. did on set that I have never experienced as an actor before.  We’d shoot scenes without dialogue, and he would play music, which informs absolutely everything.  We would walk differently, even behave differently.  He also had a lot of dinosaur sound effects.  Suddenly, there would be a really loud roar out of nowhere; it scared us and got a reaction.  He uses these tools to bring us into his world so we are all in sync—all part of the same orchestra.”

Bayona wasn’t the only one attuned to the fact that production had to be harmonic.  As Howard reunited with Pratt, she reflects about his keenest of instincts: “Chris just knows the absolutely most fun thing that can happen in a Jurassic movie.  When we’re in a scene together, and I see Chris moving, I’d say, ‘Guys…Chris’ Spidey sense is tingling.’  He knows what he would want to be watching, and we feel like kids when we’re on this movie set.  You haven’t experienced fun until you’ve acted opposite Chris Pratt in a Jurassic movie.”

Like co-star Pratt, Howard shared in the fear of all things Indoraptor.  “We know the rules in terms of how you survive certain dinosaurs, but the Indoraptor is an entirely human-made monster,” the performer notes.  “What is so terrifying about this creature is that we don’t know how to survive against it.  If you stay really still, the T. rex won’t be able to see you, and there is the possibility of escape.  Now this dinosaur is a game changer.  Dr. Wu has created an unstoppable weapon.  But here’s the twist, you would think the scariest thing that could happen in a Jurassic movie would be facing a dinosaur.  What we see in this movie is that there is something far more menacing and evil—something more bloodthirsty and ruthless—mankind.”

Naturally, Claire’s much discussed style from the first chapter has also changed along with her new world view.  “That haircut and the white impeccable suit from the first movie represented a certain kind of person, who Claire was,” sums Howard.  “In this film, I wanted to show right away that she is dramatically different.  Claire is a sensible, intelligent woman who is well prepared.”  She laughs: “I’m now wearing really sturdy boots, and I’m very happy about that.”

Joining Howard and Pratt are two performers who have been a part of the Jurassic family since day one.  BD Wong returns to the role of Dr. Henry Wu, creator of the abomination known as Indominus rex.  After devouring its only sibling, the Indominus rex, whose genetic makeup was classified, reached maturity just in time to take down Jurassic World.  Wong explains his character’s current position…in the years after Masrani’s investment fell through: “Dr. Wu has been called out for bad ethics, so he is not on top of his game anymore.  He still has the same knowledge, but he is more desperate and doesn’t have the same kind of mechanism under him.  He is in very different circumstances, and his hands are really tied.”

Still, where there is a brilliant, mad scientist, there are always investors.  Wu is working on a new genetically modified creature, an animal far more terrifying and intelligent than the T. rex or the Indominus rex.  “Dr. Wu is always creating a new dinosaur,” the performer laughs.  “Although, I would say his intentions are not terribly malicious.  He turns a blind eye to a few things for the sake of the glorious technology he is pushing forward, but he really cares about fashioning the dinosaurs in such detail that they can be controlled.  The age-old argument about how long that would take, and whether it is morally the right thing to do, is part of the movie.”

Dr. Wu’s secret lab is revealed in this chapter, and Wong was delighted with the design.  “This set takes the idea of Dr. Wu’s secret lab to a whole new level.  The room that we see at the end of Jurassic World pales in comparison to the operation that is going on down here in this massive subterranean lab.  In my acting career, it is only these movies where I get to work on this kind of set.  It pushes to the wall of the very sound stage.  It is extremely detailed, authentic and appears no expense has been spared.”

The Indominus rex was only the beginning of taking genes from a dinosaur that already existed, cloning it and cross breeding with another species to create something more awe-inspiring.  “The Indoraptor is a great super-villain for the movie,” shares Wong.  “As the creator, Wu is somewhat conflicted about the incarnation because, to his mind, the Indoraptor is not finished yet.  He would like to continue to draft it until perfect.  Everyone else just wants to take the Indoraptor and use it because it appears to be fully functional, but it’s not.”

Jeff Goldblum bookends the movie as Dr. Ian Malcolm, a character immortalized by the original Jurassic Park.  “Besides being very entertaining, this franchise does point out some of the issues of the human species today with some relevance,” Goldblum offers.  “My character has always spoken out against that: He didn’t like the idea of animals being exploited for entertainment or money-making.  In this movie, the villainy is tied in with capitalist greed and general stupidity.  Those are a couple of Ian Malcolm’s favorite subjects.”

After the disaster that occurred in the theme park, the island’s volcano threatens to wipe out the population of dinosaurs remaining on Isla Nublar.  “There is a debate going on, and Malcolm is brought to Washington, D.C., to speak in front of the Senate committee on the issue.  He believes we adverted the course of natural history.  We interfered and manipulated, and we did it for the wrong reasons.  Dinosaurs are still a bad idea and as long as the volcano is going to take them out, we should allow it.  If we try to move them, it is going to end in disaster.”

Discussing his partnership with Trevorrow and Bayona, Goldblum is complimentary.  “As I was working on the part, I got some ideas and called Colin.  We had a good hour-and-a-half conversation exchanging our ideas.  J.A. is also very sweet and trusting.  He is passionate and serious, not just about making a great movie, but articulating the issues of the misuse of science and bad ethics voiced via my character.”

Their director was thrilled to have both men rejoin the team.  “It is great to have the couple that we all love so much, but it is as exciting to bring back some familiar faces,” commends Bayona.  “We have Dr. Wu returning, and it is great to have Jeff playing Ian Malcolm once again.  To my mind, he is one of the most charismatic characters in this saga, and to have him playing a role in this movie is incredible.”

“I knew that I wanted Ian Malcolm in the film as somebody who would be the best authority to say, ‘Look at this.  I told you this would happen, and sure enough it has,” adds Trevorrow.  “I wanted to make sure that he bookended the movie, so that he was able to set up all of the ideas that we’re exploring.  It’s exciting because most of the dialogue Ian Malcolm has in the Senate hearing is straight from Michael Crichton’s novel.”

Welcome to Jurassic World:

Legends and Newcomers Board

To complete the cadre of characters Trevorrow and Connolly imagined, the production would cast international actors who represent both players at the top of their craft, as well as those just beginning their careers in the business.  For Bayona, the one thing he expected from his performers was passion for the series itself.

Legendary performer James Cromwell plays Sir Benjamin Lockwood, the wealthy ex-business partner of John Hammond.  He introduces his character’s position in the latest instalment: “Lockwood and Hammond were partners and great friends.  Together, they developed the technology to bring these dinosaurs back from extinction.  Hammond and Lockwood drifted apart, which was unfortunate.  What happens in the story is my way of trying to make amends by facilitating what he would have wanted to happen to these dinosaurs.”

A lifelong animal-rights advocate, Cromwell was impassioned by the story Trevorrow and Connolly were out to tell.  He underscores: “The usurpation of other sentient life for our own purposes, whatever they are, is an important issue.  We do not have a right to determine the value of that life.  There is a price put on every living thing, and that is deplorable.  We are to be guardians, to take care of those creatures that need to be taken care of and to leave those alone that do not need to be taken care of.”  He pauses, “Of course, we have been violating that since the first Homo sapiens stood up.”

Rafe Spall plays Eli Mills, controller of the Lockwood Estate and the man whose purpose it’s long been to give dinosaurs a safe place to live.  For the performer, the history and appeal of the franchise has never waned.  “I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like Jurassic Park, and it remains a perfect film.  The simplicity of the water shaking is master filmmaking.  That was at a time before we had the expanse of digital power to create all kinds of different monsters, explosions and huge set pieces.  Getting someone like J.A. to direct this movie is fantastic because he is a master of suspense.  To have both those elements, the classical suspenseful filmmaking style of J.A. with the might of the digital animation now available, is an exciting prospect.”

In Fallen Kingdom, Spall’s character makes some questionable choices.  “J.A. and I talked a lot about ambition, greed and the pursuit of power—how all-consuming it can be and that it is a huge engine,” the actor notes.   “Ambition is such a powerful emotion, you can get wrapped up in it and end up doing things in order to succeed.  This character believes he is doing right.  He has been entrusted with pushing Lockwood’s fortune into the future and making it survive after he dies.  Mills feels he is simply doing what he was asked to do.”

Newcomer Isabella Sermon portrays Maisie, the young granddaughter of the billionaire.  Producer Crowley tells us a bit about her place in this world: “It’s always been great to see events through the eyes of a small child, one who doesn’t know much about what the dinosaurs or the adults are doing.  We’ve created this character who’s shrouded in mystery.  She is a 10-year-old girl played by Isabella.  We interviewed approximately 2,500 girls and chose her.  She is really remarkable, smart as a whip and is tenacious.”

The young actress gives us a look inside where we find her character, and the creature who is singularly focused on getting to her.   “The Indoraptor is a horrible and extremely clever dinosaur,” says Sermon.  “It was designed to be used as a weapon but it is completely out of control.  In one scene, I’m running way, and I back down a corridor and feel something in my hair…it is the Indoraptor’s claw.  Shooting that scene was quite hard at first because I wasn’t supposed to know there was anything behind me, but it was quite scary.  The prospect of a massive claw sitting there waiting for me was hard to ignore.”

Sermon’s character is involved in some of the biggest action sequences in the film, especially when Claire and Owen are trying to rescue her.  “There is a big stunt where Maisie slides down a huge glass roof,” shares Sermon.  “It was hard to begin with, but then we progressed to going down head first, which was fun; now it looks awesome!”

Howard admits that she quite enjoyed working alongside the newcomer.  “When I’m working with a young person, in particular someone like Izzy who is a remarkable talent, I know that she is going to be truthful because she doesn’t know how to be anything else.  Izzy doesn’t have any bad tricks or habits picked up along the way.  I try to steal as much as I can from her because she is so good.”

Justice Smith, who tackles the role of DPG computer tech Franklin, he talks about what the franchise meant to him growing up.  “The original Jurassic Park movie came out the year I was born.  I remember watching all the movies with my family whenever we would take road trips.  We would have a DVD in our van, and we’d watch all the films in order.  I remember loving them because I liked horror and thrillers.  They hit the right spot.”

As the computer genius working for Claire’s Dinosaur Protection Group, Franklin thinks he can do good while staying in the comfort of his own home.  “When Claire goes to Isla Nublar on a mission to protect these animals from the volcano, I have to go to because the tracking devices in the park need to be reinstated,” Smith explains.  “He does not want to be there, and is so riddled with anxiety it’s funny.  Throughout the course of the movie, he learns how to come into his own by facing death and tribulation repeatedly.”

 As serious as the story can get, there was time for a bit of fun on set, especially when it came to be chased up an access ladder by a Baryonyx.  “J.A. thought it would be a good idea to unsettle me a few times,” laughs the actor.  “In order to get a genuine reaction, he played a T. rex roar over the loud speaker to scare me in the middle of a take.  Then, during the volcanic eruption, the chairs had something on them to make them vibrate; that scared the life out of me as well.  It’s great for my character because I’m just on edge the entire time.”  He adds, dryly, “J.A. thought it was very amusing.”

Performer Daniella Pineda went on a research mission to gain an understanding of how her character, Dr. Zia Rodriguez, a former Marine and paleoveterinarian, would handle herself in this brave new world.  “Paleo-vet is something completely new to the franchise,” she explains.  “I spoke in great detail with my dog’s veterinarian about working with syringes, etc.  Additionally, we had a number of specialists on set—one on wild alligators and a consulting veterinarian who has done a great deal of work with wild reptiles.  For example, reptiles have incredible immune systems because they’re ancient beings; you don’t need to use sanitizer, you can just sew them right up!  Every little detail I could pick up along the way really helped color my character.”

It’s no coincidence that Zia reminds audiences of Dr. Ellie Sattler, who used her paleo-botany skills to administer help to the ill triceratops in Jurassic Park.  One of Zia’s hero moments in this chapter is when Blue is injured and all eyes are on her to save the Velociraptor’s life.  Pineda recalls filming day: “I didn’t sleep the night before.  Not only was it my character’s big scene, but the task at hand felt so real because the dinosaur I was operating on was an animatronic creature; it looked so realistic.  It felt like I was actually operating on a real animal.”

The actress echoes her fellow cast when it comes to sharing stories about collaborating with their director.  “J.A. knows exactly what he wants, and working with him was an artistic pleasure” she reflects.  “He is incredibly technical but at the same time, he is an artist and approaches everything with love and truth.  While I was operating on Blue, he incorporated wonderful music and told me to slow down and take my time.  Often directors are telling you to pick up the pace, speed it up, but that was never the case with J.A.”

The Lockwood Foundation has been established for the preservation of these animals, and it is galvanized to save as many as possible and bring them by ship to an unknown-island sanctuary that will be, theoretically, safe.  There will be no tourists and no interaction with humanity.  Although Lockwood believes that is being put into effect, he will be soon mistaken.

Toby Jones joins the cast as the manipulative Eversoll, who sees the magnificent creatures as merely a commodity.  “It is safe to say that my character is interested in money and the profits to be made from generating new dinosaur breeds,” Jones offers.  “In a way, he is like a rogue arms dealer; he sees profits in selling these creatures as weapons.  He is totally morally neutral about whatever he is selling.  He is only interested in whether or not it will make him a profit.”  The multitalented performer admits characters with questionable morality are those whom he most relishes bringing to life.  “I enjoy playing people like that who are completely compromised.”

The scenes involving Eversoll were filmed on some of the enormous sets built at Pinewood Studios in England.  Jones recalls the scale and detail: “It was extraordinary, the care and attention that had been paid to each exhibit—and similarly with the costumes, makeup, wigs, everything across the board.  You’re aware that people are taking care of every single detail in a very fast-paced, action-packed movie.  When you walked on to the huge hall of the Lockwood Estate with the dinosaur exhibits, it was like walking into a natural history museum.”

The voice of authority and loving character of Maisie’s life is Iris, her nanny.  Played by acclaimed thespian Geraldine Chaplin, Iris looks after both the young girl and Lockwood.  According to Chaplain, “She loves Maisie and would die for her.”  Chaplin has appeared in every one of Bayona’s features and shares the history of their friendship.  “Years ago, J.A. saw me in a trashy TV show and asked me to be in his movie.  I read the script, and I could tell this guy was breathing cinema.  It turned out to be a huge hit.  So the next film, he asked me to join him in Thailand, and he wrote the most beautiful part for me.  Then in A Monster Calls, it was the same thing.  He gives me little bits in every film; he thinks I’m his good luck charm.”

The actress offers how being the daughter of the iconic Charlie Chaplin informed her start in the business, as well as her work ethic and compassion toward others.  “My father was Charlie Chaplin and not only was he the most famous, most genius of all people in films—he was also the most loved—which is really important.  When I first came into the industry, everyone wanted me to be good because my father was their hero.  I was treated like a niece, daughter or granddaughter.  They helped me, and it was thanks to their love for my father that my first steps into the industry were so easy.”

Every Trick in the Book:

Creating Practical Dinos

Renowned Oscar^®-winning creature effects supervisor Neal Scanlan was brought aboard with the unenviable task of ensuring that practical effects dovetailed seamlessly into the film.  He discusses the curious balance between physical and computer effects on a juggernaut project involving dinosaurs: “I’m going to surprise you and say that animatronics is not always the best way forward for every scene.  You have to weigh up the pros and cons of approaching it practically.  If there is a dinosaur on set, you can light it for real and the actors can interact…but you have to support that performance with the people behind the creature. 

“In some ways it will have an impact on your shooting schedule; you have to take time to film with an animatronic,” he continues.  “In the balance, we ask ourselves if it is economically and artistically more valuable to do it that way, or as a post-production effect.  Once we have looked at each particular case, with the director and the VFX supervisor we decide whether—because of the environment or the circumstances—it is the right way to go practically.  It is interesting dicing up the different techniques.”

Logistics be damned, Scanlan enjoyed the experience of seeing Bayona’s reaction to the creation of the first Fallen Kingdom dinosaurs.  “What I found with J.A. is that he is very trusting, which is always a great help when you first become involved with a filmmaker.  When he saw the Tyrannosaurus at its true size, it was incredibly exciting.  Although, of course, we’ll never see a dinosaur for real, you have an immediate reaction to seeing this very real-looking creature in front of you.”

The creature effects team had a number of animatronic dinosaurs to bring to life, but none was more of a delicate dance than Blue.  “We made a lying-down Blue, which is amazing to walk around.  To see the size of the claws and know that once this creature walked this Earth is amazing,” Scanlan proclaims.  “As Blue is injured early on in the movie and is operated on by Zia, we had a vet come in to talk through the whole process of operating on a sedated animal.  How one would approach that, not only from a procedural point of view, but also the types of tools that would be used, how the animal reacts to anaesthesia—and how there is still an awful lot of reflex action.  This presented us with some dramatic moments to play with as well.”

What would a Jurassic film be without our infamous T. rex?  “That is a lifetime ambition realized!” Scanlan cheers.  “This is an amazing sequence, it’s very dark and tense because the T. rex is sedated, and we have learned that sedated animals often have their eyes open.  It is really eerie because, from the audience’s perspective, they’ll never quite be sure whether the T. rex is fully sedated or not…”

On creating the Indoraptor, he comments: “This is essentially a genetic experiment, and the idea is that it is not necessarily 100-percent successful.  Our role with the Indo was to take the initial CG design and develop it further, with the scars and texture of the scales.  Because this is a creature whose genes are drawn from many species, it does offer opportunities to explore and research these details.  It is fascinating: the difference between something looking dragon-like, or crocodile-like or reptilian. 

For Scanlan’s team, the mandate is the real language that exists in the natural world—something to which they had to be faithful.  “At the same time, we have to be imaginative enough to allow the Indoraptor to be something different, believable yet grounded.  This is not only in the form but the textures and how they might appear.  Also, the genetic consequences of man intervening with nature, maybe this isn’t as perfect a genetic blend as one had hoped, so it perhaps it has some degrading of skin, flaking of scales or some form of illness beginning to take place and be evident.  All this gives the dinosaur his back story.”

In addition to crafting these amazing creatures, Scanlan’s team is responsible for the performance of the animals.  His team of talented puppeteers would bring the dinosaurs to life using a mixture of techniques.  “Having a coordinated group of people who work together as a team to bring something to life through performance is the way forward for animatronics.  Our approach with the dinosaurs was to try and operate them wherever we could through what we call ‘raw performance’ or ‘direct connection.’  Whenever we can get a performer to have their hands directly connected to the dinosaur, we will.  If we can physically get our hands to touch and move something, then it is a direct connection between your heart and your imagination.

For Blue, they had up to 12 puppeteers or performers who were only slightly off camera, almost inside the dinosaur.  Bayona’s team only used technology for the areas they cannot perfect with puppetry, for instance, blinking of eyes or the snarl.  Like a magician, it’s sleight of hand.  They use every trick in the book to bring the human into the creature, or dinosaur in this case.

Nevertheless, the advancements in technology have greatly benefited this hands-on approach, Scanlan explains.  “In many ways, VFX has revolutionized practical effects.  If you go back 15 years ago, and I wanted to put a rod onto a puppet to bring that to life, there was no way of removing that rod, it would have been in shot or we would have had to work out how to hide it from the camera.  Nowadays, you can not only have a rod, you can have a whole person in shot and they can be removed digitally afterwards if the scene really demanded it.  This does spoil us terribly, and CG has opened up this opportunity.”

Collaborating with the visual effects department to fill our screens with awe-inspiring dinosaurs is nothing new to the franchise.  Scanlan explains: “They got very clever at mixing practical with digital.  A sequence where you see four Velociraptors together, two are practical and two are digital and it is very difficult to tell which one’s which because they swap them around.  It was brilliantly done…the ability to mix two techniques and be clever about where and when to keep the audience guessing.”

This time, Claire and Owen get closer to the dinosaurs than ever before.  Howard discusses working with the lifelike animatronic creatures, particularly the Indoraptor: “There are five animatronic dinosaurs, as there are quite a few scenes where we’re interacting closely with the dinosaurs, especially with Blue. To have the opportunity to have scenes in which you are responding to the performance of a dinosaur is incredible.”

“Jurassic World had one animatronic creature, the Apatosaurus, all the other dinosaurs were CG,” explains Pratt.  “On this movie, we have some real hands on interaction with the T. rex and Blue.  To be acting, physically feeling, seeing, responding to these giant beautiful dinosaurs was amazing.  The CFX team did such a great job, the animatronics are awesome.  Claire rides on this drugged up, sleepy T. rex, and I narrowly escape its snapping jaws.”

Interacting with the animatronics was also a new experience for Smith.  “It’s been a blast; I have never seen anything like the raptor and T. rex before.  The raptor had sweat: It drooled, blinked, and even had eye fluid.  It was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.  It took 11 guys to operate it, and they were all huddled under the table making this creation move like a real animal.  There are so many technical aspects to it that I’ve not dealt with before.  Countless elements that I would never have imagined myself doing.”

Likewise, Jones talks about how the animatronics and reference dinosaurs helped to inform his performance.  “It is interesting how useful it is when they bring in theatrical rather than cinematic toys to play with.  When the puppeteers were on set with scale dinosaur tails or heads, you could understand what the final dinosaur would look like.  It is a kind of irony that we are performing in a state of the art semi-computerized drama, but the thing that really helps you is a piece of ancient theater—like a puppet operated with full dedication by these model makers.”

ILM Weaves Magic:

Visual Effects

For 25 years, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) has been astounding Jurassic fans with its computer-generated dinosaurs.  Visual effects supervisor DAVID VICKERY, discusses his team’s ambitions: “While paying respect to the films that have come before, what we are trying to do is to create new cinematic moments that people remember; we want them to come away feeling like they’ve had a great time at the cinema.”

The challenges of blending realistic dinosaurs alongside their SFX counterparts might see superhuman, and they are.  Vickery reflects that he takes his duties deadly seriously: “The moment people don’t believe these dinosaurs are there, they get taken out of the film very quickly, and the experience is destroyed.  We go into as much depth as we possibly can…to understand not only their appearance, size and movements but also the personalities of these animals and their characteristics. 

“We consult with palaeontologists and re-create anatomically correct models of the dinosaurs, from the skeleton up,” he continues.  “We need to see how the muscles connect at different points along the skeleton, and the way the ligaments and tendons are actually then fixed.  We then add skin to the dinosaurs with a living flesh and a layer of subcutaneous fat beneath…then run very complex effects simulations to figure out movement.  We’ve looked at elephants and rhinoceros to understand how animals with certain features move and behave.  .”

As a good deal of the film’s action takes place far away from the jungles of Isla Nublar, Vickery’s team was tasked with ensuring that one could believe an Indoraptor was crawling into a child’s bedroom.  If Bayona does his job right, you’ll be lulled into the nightmare.  “These films pay homage to one another,” the VFX supervisor sums.  “At the start of Fallen Kingdom, you will feel very comfortable; you are in known territory, and it’s like a warm cosy Jurassic blanket.  But it quickly changes.  We take the dinosaurs into new environments and spaces they’ve never been and explore how they would react to their unfamiliar surroundings.”

“The Indoraptor is a real character.”  Vickery says about our new “hero” dinosaur.  “He is around 10-feet-tall to the top of his head, twice the size of the Velociraptor.  He is slightly mentally unhinged, genetically imperfect, and a work in progress.  There’s things wrong with his brain; he’s got ticks and twitches and is completely unpredictable.  You’ll see a dinosaur that looks like the Indominus rex or Velociraptor, but he can get down on all fours and walk like a quadruped, which is something we haven’t seen in these types of dinosaurs do before.”

It is a matter of some pride that the production team has ensured that there are more dinosaurs in this film than all the other Jurassic movies put together.  Naturally, Bayona’s team is showcasing all species of dinosaurs from Jurassic World, including T. rex and Blue.  While the artists have designed a whole new batch for this film, they’re also bringing back some dinosaurs that appeared in The Lost World, and some that were only featured in Jurassic Park.  For Vickery, the kid in him was thrilled.  “It is exciting to bring all that together and update all the older dinosaurs with the new methods and technologies available to us on this one.”

As water is the bane of SFX, one of the most challenging dinosaurs for the VFX team was the Mosasaurs.  “It’s always easier if you shoot above or underneath the surface of water,” sighs Vickery.  “The Mosasaurs has a habit going up and below so we ended up shooting lots of large-scale practical elements.  It seems odd to say, but our first port of call would always be to try and shoot something practically, get a real reference and then integrate them into the film with digital effects.”

Bayona has been keen to push Vickery’s box of toys to the limit.  “He is like a kid in the sweet shop,” laughs the VFX supervisor.  “He collaborates with all the people around him and leans on me to come up with intriguing visual ideas, creative ways to get interesting shots.  It might simply be down to the way the dinosaur moves, and we start designing shots and they become pieces of action and beats within the film.

Vickery and his team also worked closely with creature effects supervisor Scanlan.  “There are quite a number of animatronic dinosaurs in this film, and there has been a direct and strong collaboration between VFX and CFX.  One of the first animatronics they needed to build was a full-scale T. rex head and shoulders.  ILM took the high-resolution models of the T. rex from Jurassic World and transferred the detailed texture maps to make them back into the three dimensional model.  We sent that to Neal who then did a full-scale 3D print of the T. rex in sections, so he had an incredibly detailed, faithful version of the T. rex from Jurassic World.  The results were fantastic, you can see every scale on her skin.”

For the new dinosaurs, the VFX team liked to have a lighting reference to understand what the magnificent creatures would look like in the environment.  They did 3D sculpts of the creature in Maya and 3D studio and sent them to Scanlan, who was again able to 3D print them out into single pieces.  His team of CFX artists would then add additional detail on top, and paint it up so that the team could have a photo realistic reference to work with on set.

Not only did the VFX crew have the seemingly impossible job of creating realistic dinosaurs.  There was a little thing called a volcano erupting on Isla Nublar—one that explodes while Claire and Owen are on the island.  An enormous amount of research went into creating emotive visuals for these scenes.  “We have all grown up seeing pictures of the extinction of the dinosaurs in books, but I don’t believe anyone has realized that on film—to this scale,” notes Vickery.  “It is an incredibly exciting opportunity to see these cataclysmic events happen on screen.  We have consulted volcanologists to understand how a volcano of this type might erupt and the various stages of lava and pyroclastic flow.  We are speeding it up a bit for the sake of our film, but it is definitely all based on real science.”

In Hawaii, Main Street of Jurassic World was re-built for the scene when Claire and Owen arrive back on the island and begin their search for Blue.  The park has been deserted by humans, so is overgrown and destroyed by the events that took place three years before.  Nicholson built part of the street but couldn’t practically build the Visitor’s Center in its entirety, due to its size.  “This is where ILM steps in and creates digital set extensions to complete Jurassic World,” the production designer says.  “This time it is overgrown and run down. We are looking at the end of the park and it is quite a sad image to see it in disrepair; the dinosaurs have taken it back.”

There was also the small matter of a ship that had to be large enough to transport a number of fully grown dinosaurs. “The Arcadia is a fantastic example of where visual effects can help because it’s a ship that doesn’t exist.  It’s a boat on a scale that you’d never be able to dock on any coast of Hawaii, so the exterior of the ship needed to be completely generated in visual effects,” offers Vickery.  “Back in the U.K., Andy and his team built the interior of the ship’s hold.  This collaboration among the art department, prop makers, set builders, lighting and visual effects’ teams ensured a seamlessness between the different departments’ work.  Audiences can just watch the spectacle and enjoy.”

Lava Flows and Auction Attacks:

Designing Destruction

For Crowley, one of the exciting things about making Jurassic movies is that the dinosaurs themselves get more interesting.  “They’re more beautifully realized,” he shares.  “There has been a lot of research and new evidence suggests that dinosaurs had brighter colors and beautiful bone structures.  We all grew up with dinosaur toys that were grey, but now speculation is that they were far more colorful; so we’ve created amazing dinosaurs working with some of the best designers.”

It was a source of the pride for the team to add a number of new dinosaurs to this chapter.  “People love to see dinosaurs that they didn’t even know existed,” the producer continues.  “To make them credible we’ve gone to ILM who has been the partner on all of the movies.  They are the best visual-effects house in the world.  When you’re watching the movie, you will feel that those animals are as real as any animal that you’ve ever seen.”

Enhancing the appearance of the dinosaurs in every way possible is high on the agenda, Crowley says.  “We have Skywalker Sound, who has worked on these movies in the past.  The sounds you will experience with our dinosaurs will make you feel as if you’ve gone back 65 million years and are listening to what’s going on in the world that they lived in. We are getting the best anybody possibly can in terms of dinosaurs.”

When you’re producing a movie on the scale of Jurassic World, you need to give the director a support network of right-hand collaborators to match the extraordinary tasks at hand.  Crowley explains the process: “For J.A., all of his movies have been shot by DP Oscar Faura.  J.A.’s relationship with Oscar is probably the most important on set because they have to think alike—to live inside each other’s heads.  We agreed to bring Oscar on to the show, and asked J.A. to look at a production designer we’d worked with in England named Andy Nicholson and costume designer Sammy Sheldon Differ.”

The Oscar^®-nominated production designer, lauded for his work on Gravity, proved a flexible designer who was able to pull Bayona forward into a movie of this scale.  “J.A. was able to get what he wants in a way that he never could have imagined before,” Crowley states.  “Equally, you want to give him someone in costumes who you feel will bring something special to this kind of a movie.  J.A. and Sammy put their heads together and came up with the wardrobe for Bryce and Chris, which gives a look to the whole movie that’s very special.”

Nicholson was faced with the challenge of creating a new world within the confines of an established franchise.  Still, he appreciated the radical departure that the filmmakers were brave enough to take.  “There is a very established look to Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, and this film is set in a very different context,” Nicholson notes.  “When we leave the island, it is a complete departure from what you have seen before.  It’s very refreshing.  It was interesting exploring what that could mean, not just how the dinosaurs were leaving the island…but the place they were going.”

Much of the impressive scope of Fallen Kingdom is due to Nicholson’s expansive set design and builds at Pinewood Studios in England, as well as his on-location work in Hawaii.  “The scale is a by-product of the characters that our dinosaurs are playing, as well as the vast sets that the storyline requires,” he reflects.

Nicholson enjoyed collaborating with the creative mind of Bayona.  “J.A.’s vision is unique and focused,” the designer offers.  “He spends a great deal of time thinking about what he shows his audience: the set design and framing of every shot.  When I came on board, I spent four weeks in Barcelona with him going through reference pictures and ideas, as well as background detail and textures.  We established a language and his ideas for the Lockwood house in particular; those were a lot of fun because of J.A.’s thoughts about color and texture.”

The Lockwood Estate—built in entirety on sound stages at Pinewood Studios England—reveals a history to the franchise that will be a surprise.  The action is set over a number of the floors, with rooms including the vast library, state-of-the-art subterranean laboratory, the colossal containment facility, the smart office of Mills, and the bedrooms of Lockwood and Maisie.  Nicolson discusses the evolution of the estate, and the flexibility of his producers and director: “The Library is a combination of what was originally two separate sets in the script.  I liked the idea of having dioramas with dinosaurs, like natural history museums.  I appreciated the passive control of nature and the color you get from that kind of display.  It informs the room and says a lot about Lockwood.  The addition later on of the dinosaur skeletons brought the room into becoming his private museum and collection, one based on his obsession with the creatures and his considerable wealth.”

Pratt admits that this set was one of his favorite layouts of the production: “Lockwood, in his passion and love for dinosaurs, has created a home that resembles the Natural History Museum,” the actor notes.  “This has been Maisie’s entire life and it’s a really cool, dangerous backdrop.  There was actually a spookiness to it when we were filing the scenes in which the Indoraptor is chasing us through this place with its secret passages, cobwebs and creakiness.  We’ve got really amazing practical sets on this movie, and I’m excited for people to see these awesome backdrops that juxtapose the dinosaurs.”

Another enormous set build at Pinewood was the interior of the Arcadia ship, used to transport the dinosaurs from Isla Nublar to their new home.  “We had to come up with a type of ship that had a believable way of loading the dinosaurs quickly,” the designer explains.  “I looked at a couple of military options, and we settled on a specific type of dock-landing craft.  The great thing about these boats is you can back them up to within 100 yards of the beach and drive them with pontoons.  It’s like a car ferry, but with a nicer feel because there is a big empty dock in the back.  It had to be fast, so we added the slightly futuristic design of the fast attack vessels, as well as oil-rig servicing vessels and this large military ship.  We used the ceiling of the stage as the ceiling of the boat, which gave us even more space inside the dock.”

In order to ensure these sets would be large enough for the scripted action, Nicholson pre-visualised all his sets.  “The great thing about modelling sets in a computer is being able to play around with how the action will work.  It is very important for projects like this because you have a way of addressing your questions in a relatively low-cost scenario.  Someone can tell you a Velociraptor is X-feet long, but until you see it in the space, you can’t appreciate what that means in terms of your set and the action that needs to take place within it.”

Three months into production, the cast and crew relocated to Hawaii to film the scenes set on Isla Nublar.  While many practical locations were utilized, a number of sets on the islands were also required.  Jurassic World is overgrown and abandoned, and the team was able to rebuild a portion of the main street…but as destroyed as it was at the end of the last film.  Plus, they assumed that because the volcano is erupting, there would be a certain amount of seismic activity…allowing them to break the buildings down even more.

An unexpected consequence of returning to Jurassic World was that the filmmakers were able to explore other areas of the island that haven’t seen in the films before.  It was crucial, however, that they fit within the architectural style of the theme park.  Moviegoers will see evidence of rides as we progress through Claire and Owen’s journey to the bunker in order to activate the beacons.  Fan-favorite the gyrosphere is back…and it might just save the day.

U.K. to Hawaii:

Locations of the Adventure

United Kingdom

While in the U.K., production was based at world renowned Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire.  This is where the art department, costume, creature effects, special effects, visual effects workshops and editing were situated.  Many of the sound stages at Pinewood were utilized for the huge set builds needed for the film.

Lockwood’s library was built on S Stage.  Resembling a natural history museum, the vast set was filled with archaeological artefacts, dinosaur skeletons and lined with intricate dioramas, which serve as Maisie’s playground and hiding place.  When filming in the library was complete, the set was re-dressed and transformed into Lockwood’s underground garage, which is used by the more duplicitous characters to house a sinister auction room.

The eerie dinosaur containment facility, in the basement of the Lockwood mansion, was built on R Stage.  This was designed as the holding area for the dinosaurs arriving from Isla Nublar and also housed Dr. Wu’s state-of-the-art laboratory and the control room.  Stages M and F were utilized to build Maisie’s quirky and luxurious bedroom and Lockwood’s bedroom.

The vast interior of the Arcadia, the cargo ship that transports the dinosaurs from Isla Nublar to their new destination, was built on RA Stage.  This set was filled with huge trucks for the scenes in which Claire, Owen and Franklin dive on board the vessel and find Zia working to save Blue’s life.  When filming on the Arcadia was complete, the set was rebuilt to become the gigantic rooftop of the Lockwood Estate where Claire, Owen and Maisie come face to face with the stealthy Indoraptor.

The production also took extra space at Langley Business Centre, a short distance from Pinewood Studios.  In order to film scenes at the beginning of the movie—introducing Franklin and Zia to the story—Claire’s Dinosaur Protection Group office was built here.  Other scenes filmed at Langley included the video of Owen training baby raptors, and the scene in which Claire and Owen must take blood from a heavily (?) sedated T. rex.

The cast and crew ventured out on location to MOD Hartland and Minley in Surrey.  Working through the night with helicopters, rain machines and lightening simulators, this location was used for the scenes in which the station guard ominously opens the gates to the Jurassic World Lagoon in the opening sequences of the film.

Other sets built at this location were the exterior of the Lockwood House, where wealthy customers are welcomed to the auction of a lifetime, and the Loading Dock, where sedated dinosaurs are delivered to the estate after their voyage from Isla Nublar.

Oahu, Hawaii

Every Jurassic movie to date has filmed in Hawaii and Fallen Kingdom was no exception.  In mid-June 2017, 50 core members of the U.K. film unit travelled across the Atlantic to join the American team in Hawaii, USA.

Filming took place on Oahu to capture all the exterior action that takes place on Isla Nublar.  Production kicked off with Claire, Owen, Franklin and Zia arriving at the Radio Tower Bunker.  This exterior was built at Kualoa Ranch, also home to the Gyrosphere Valley, where Claire, Owen and Franklin become trapped in a terrifying dinosaur stampede…and take cover in the disused theme park ride.

Established in 1850, Kualoa is a 4,000-acre Private Nature Reserve, as well as a working cattle ranch stretching from the steep mountain cliffs to the sparkling sea.  Located on the north-eastern side of Oahu in the Hawaiian countryside and along the white sandy shores of Kaneohe Bay, it is just 24 miles from Honolulu.  Other productions that have filmed at this stunning location are Windtalkers, Pearl Harbor, Godzilla, Tears of the Sun and 50 First Dates.  Notable TV shows include the old and new Hawaii Five-O, Magnum P.I. and Lost. 

Claire, Owen, Zia and Franklin arrive on Isla Nublar via prop plane.  They are greeted by gruff expedition leader, Wheatley, who shows them around the high-tech base camp.  This set was constructed on land owned by and neighbouring Dillingham Ranch on the Northshore.  Fortunately for all, the art department cleared the site of hornets and wasps and built a small runway where they could land the plane.

The largest set build in Hawaii took place at Police Beach (near Papa’iloa Beach).  This is where the art department recreated Main Street, complete with destroyed Nobu and Margaritaville.  The set took more than three months to build and was meticulously dressed with the aftermath of chaos that took place on the island in the last film.  When Claire and Owen first arrive on the island, they drive through this set as they venture back into Jurassic World. 

The Halona Blowhole was the site chosen for the scene in which Claire, Franklin and Owen wash up on the beach after escaping a stamped of dinosaurs in a gyrosphere.  This picturesque cove was made famous by Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in the 1953 classic From Here to Eternity.

Situated on Oahu’s windward side, He’eia Kea Pier served as the location of the shipping dock, where dinosaurs are loaded onto the Arcadia as lava spews down the mountainside…and Claire, Owen and Franklin must jump in a truck—joining the cargo to its unknown destination.

Picturesque He’eia Kea Harbour is located in Kaneohe Bay, the largest sheltered body of water in the Hawaiian Islands.  On a usual business day, the He’eia Kea Harbour offers fishing charters and scenic cruises, boat, water toy and jet-ski rentals, parasailing, snorkel and scuba diving cruises.  Just a few moments away from the Pier, is He’eia Jungle, where Owen’s trek to find Blue was lensed.  During the expedition to locate the beloved Velociraptor, Owen is double-crossed, and left behind to be devoured by dinosaurs or lava…whichever gets to him first.

****

          Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment present—in association with Legendary Pictures/Perfect World Entertainment: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, James Cromwell, Toby Jones, Ted Levine, BD Wong, Isabella Sermon, Geraldine Chaplin and Jeff Goldblum.  The music is by Michael Giacchino, and the Jurassic Park theme is by John Williams.  The film’s costume designer is Sammy Sheldon Differ, and its editor is Bernard Vilaplana.  The production designer is Andy Nicholson, and the director of photography is Oscar Faura.  Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’s executive producers are Steven Spielberg, Colin Trevorrow.  It is produced by Frank Marshall, p.g.a., Patrick Crowley, Belén Atienza, p.g.a.  Based on characters created by Michael Crichton, the epic action-adventure is written by Derek Connolly & Colin Trevorrow.  Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is directed by J.A. Bayona.  A Universal Picture ^TM and ^© 2017 Universal Studios & Amblin Entertainment, Inc.  www.jurassicworld.com

ABOUT THE CAST

CHRIS PRATT (Owen) has firmly secured himself as one of Hollywood’s most sought-after leading men.

Pratt most recently returned to the wildly popular role of Star-Lord in Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War in April 2018, and in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 in May 2017 for Walt Disney Pictures.  He top-lined Marvel’s first installment of Guardians of the Galaxy, which was one of the top-three grossing films of 2014 with over $770 million at the global box office.

In 2016, Pratt starred in the Sony Pictures sci-fi romance Passengers opposite Jennifer Lawrence for the Oscar^®-nominated director of The Imitation Game, Morten Tyldum.  Passengers was released on December 21, 2016.  He additionally appeared in The Magnificent Seven opposite Denzel Washington for director Antoine Fuqua.  The film opened the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival and closed the 2016 Venice Film Festival.

In 2015, Pratt headlined Jurassic World, which is the fourth highest-grossing film of all time behind Avatar, Titanic and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The year 2015 also marked the end of the seventh and final season of Primetime Emmy Award-nominated series Parks and Recreation for which Pratt is perhaps best known for portraying the character Andy Dwyer opposite Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman, Aziz Ansari and Adam Scott. 

Other notable film credits include the enormously successful Warner Bros. animated feature The Lego Movie, which made over $460 million worldwide; the DreamWorks comedy Delivery Man; Spike Jonze’s critically acclaimed Her; and the Universal Pictures comedy feature The Five-Year Engagement.

In 2012, Pratt portrayed an iconic member of Navy SEAL Team Six in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, which was nominated for Best Picture at both the Golden Globe and Academy Awards^®.

In 2011, Pratt starred in Moneyball where he delivered a memorable performance as Oakland A’s first baseman, Scott Hatteberg.  The Columbia Pictures film also starred Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman and received six Academy Award^® nominations, including a nomination for Best Picture.

BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD (Claire) continues to be a versatile and dynamic talent, both on screen and behind the camera. 

Most recently, Howard starred with Matthew McConaughey in Stephen Gaghan’s Gold.  In 2016, she starred in an episode of Netflix’s critically acclaimed series Black Mirror.  Howard’s episode “Nosedive” was directed by Joe Wright and garnered her a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination in the category of Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series.

Other film credits include Walt Disney Pictures’ Pete’s Dragon alongside Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter with Matt Damon, 50/50 opposite Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tate Taylor’s award-winning screen adaptation of The Help, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse; Tennessee Williams’ The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, McG’s Terminator Salvation; Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water and Lars von Trier’s Manderlay.  Howard made her film debut in Shyamalan’s The Village opposite Joaquin Phoenix.  In 2008, she received a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance as Rosalind in HBO’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, written and directed by Kenneth Branagh.

As a filmmaker, Howard has created content for multiple campaigns such as Canon’s Project Imagination, MoroccanOil’s Inspired, Vanity Fair’s The Decade Series “The 1960s” with RadicalMedia and Glamour magazine’s “‘Reel’ Moments.”  Howard has also directed content for MTV’s M83’s supervideo “Claudia Lewis,” Sony and Lifetime’s Call Me Crazy: A Five Film and Solemates in conjunction with Canon’s “Project Imagination: The Trailer,” which screened at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.  Howard has directed over a dozen short films and has received numerous accolades for her work, including being short-listed for a potential Oscar^® in 2012 for her half-hour film When You Find Me.  She also produced the Sony Classics film Restless, which starred Mia Wasikowska with director Gus Van Sant.  Restless was featured as part of the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and opened the 2011 Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard selection.

Leaving the Tisch School of the Arts program at New York University to perform on the New York stage, Howard played the role of Mariane in the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Broadway production of Tartuffe, Rosalind in The Public Theater’s As You Like It, Sally Platt in the Manhattan Theatre Club’s production of Alan Ayckbourn’s House/Garden and played the role of Emily in the Bay Street Theater Festival’s production of Our Town.

Howard is the founder of Nine Muses Entertainment.

Over the past decade, British actor RAFE SPALL (Eli Mills) has starred in major studio releases such as The Big Short and Prometheus together with the British independent films Shaun of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and X+Y, for which he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the  British Independent Film Awards.  In 2012, Spall portrayed Canadian author Yann Martel in Ang Lee’s Academy Award^®-winning drama Life of Pi.  The film was a critical and financial success, winning four Academy Awards^® and making over $600 million at the worldwide box office.  In 2015, he played John Hancock in the History Channel three-part series Sons of Liberty, alongside Jim Broadbent; and appeared in the Academy Award^®-winning biographical comedy-drama The Big Short, alongside Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling and Steve Carell.  

His stage credits include the award-winning Constellations with Sally Hawkins at the Royal Court, for which he was nominated for a Best Actor Olivier Award, and the critically acclaimed Mike Nichols directed Broadway revival of Pinter’s Betrayal, which also starred Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz.  Spall’s previous theater credits include Just a Bloke and Alaska at the Royal Court; The Knight of Burning Pestle at the Young Vic; Michael Grandage’s production of John Gabriel Borkman at the Donmar Warehouse; and If There Is, I Haven’t Found It Yet at The Bush Theatre.  Most recently, Spall starred in Patrick Marber’s critically acclaimed Hedda Gabler at the National Theatre, for which we was nominated for an Olivier Award.

In 2014, Spall starred in the holiday special of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror series alongside Jon Hamm and Oona Chaplin, and, in 2011, he starred in the titular role of Pete in Channel 4’s Pete Versus Life.  Spall starred in the The Shadow Line—a thrilling six part drama for the BBC.  The conspiracy thriller saw him star alongside a cast including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Christopher Eccleston and Lesley Sharp.  

Other recent film credits include Working Title’s romantic comedy I Give It a Year with Simon Baker and Rose Byrne, and the festive family comedy Get Santa with Jim Broadbent and Warwick Davis.  Spall played Shakespeare in Roland Emmerich’s controversial feature Anonymous, and starred in the adaptation of David Nicholls’ bestselling novel One Day, opposite Anne Hathaway, Jim Sturgess and Romola Garai.  Most recent feature films include Steven Spielberg’s The BFG alongside Mark Rylance, and he starred as Captain Flint in Swallows and Amazons for director Phillipa Lowthorpe.  He also starred in leading roles in both Niall Johnson’s Mum’s List, as well as David Bruckner’s The Ritual.  Spall plays Reg Whitehead in Cameron Crowe’s Showtime series Roadies.

JUSTICE SMITH (Franklin) was most recently seen in the romantic fantasy drama Every Day.  In 2016, he starred in the Netflix series The Get Down, created by Baz Luhrmann.  Smith was first seen in the Fox 2000 film Paper Towns, which also starred Cara Delevingne and Nat Wolff, which was based on the John Green novel of the same name.  Smith recently made his stage debut in the off-Broadway play Yen, in which he starred opposite Oscar^® nominee Lucas Hedges. 

Smith is currently in production on the upcoming action mystery film Detective Pikachu, which also stars Ryan Reynolds and Kathryn Newton.

Smith graduated from the Orange County School of the Arts in 2013 with a major in Acting.  In his senior year, he was ranked in the top 1.3% of young artists across the nation by the National Young Arts Foundation.

DANIELLA PINEDA (Zia) currently stars as Vanessa Randall in TBS’s comedy The Detour, which was recently renewed for a fourth season.  The series follows the Randall family as they drive from their home in Syracuse, New York, to Florida for a family vacation that encounters several dramatic delays.

Pineda recently starred in the comedy Mr. Roosevelt in the role of Jen Morales, which had its world premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2017.

After first earning a Sociology and Radio Journalism degree from Mills College, Pineda received a fellowship with KALW.  Her fellowship allowed her to step into the field covering socio-political stories for a series which focused on poverty in East Oakland, before leaving San Francisco to follow her passion for screenwriting and producing in New York.   While in New York, Pineda wrote and produced a series of satirical YouTube videos that landed on sites like Huffington Post and Gawker.

Shortly after, Pineda booked roles on Homeland, Inside Amy Schumer, Newlyweds, The Fitzgerald Family Christmas, and a reoccurring role in The CW’s The Originals as Sophie Deveraux.  Additionally, she starred in the NBC military conspiracy series American Odyssey as Ruby Simms, an assassin who poses as a freelance reporter to Harrison Walters played by Jake Robinson.

Pineda currently resides in New York.

British Actor TOBY JONES (Mr. Eversoll) is known for his performances both in the theater and on screen.  This year, he returned to the stage for the revival of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party, and his performance was met with high acclaim.  This year has also seen him star on screen in the French comedy film Normandie nue for Philippe le Guay and Lionsgate’s World War I drama Journey’s End.

Film credits in 2017 included Universal Pictures’ crime drama The Snowman and Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or-nominated film Happy End.   In 2016, Jones starred in the psychological indie thriller Kaleidoscope.  Jones also reprised his British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award (BAFTA)-nominated role in the third and final season of the award-winning comedy series Detectorists, written by and co-starring Mackenzie Crook.  Jones won both the Capri European Talent Award and the award for Best British Actor at the London Film Critics’ Circle Awards for his leading role as Truman Capote in Infamous.  In 2011, Jones starred in the Oscar^®-nominated adaptation of John le Carré’s classic crime novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and, in 2012, he garnered huge critical acclaim for his performance as Alfred Hitchcock in the HBO/BBC television movie The Girl, for which he received BAFTA, Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy Award nominations.  That same year, Jones starred as Gilderoy in Peter Strickland’s multi-award-winning film Berberian Sound Studio.  In 2014, Jones starred in the BBC Two drama Marvellous, which won the 2015 BAFTA TV Award for Single Drama, and, in 2015, in Matteo Garrone’s fantasy horror Tale of Tales.

Further credits include Atomic Blonde, Sherlock, Dad’s Army, The Secret Agent, The Witness for the Prosecution, Morgan, Wayward Pines, Capital, The Man Who Knew Infinity, The Hunger Games series, the Harry Potter series, Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Leave to Remain, Andrew Kötting’s By Our Selves, My Week with Marilyn, The Adventures of Tintin, Frost/Nixon, W. and The Painted Veil.

For theater, Jones was seen in Circle Mirror Transformation again with Imelda Staunton for the Royal Court.  He was awarded the 2002 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in The Play What I Wrote, a musical farce written by Hamish McColl, Sean Foley and Eddie Braben, and directed by Kenneth Branagh.  The Olivier Award-winning show was a celebration of the British double act Morecambe and Wise, and an irreverent and farcical exploration of the nature of double acts in general.  Jones starred as Arthur at the Wyndham’s Theatre, London, before the play opened on Broadway, New York, where it was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Special Theatrical Event.  His other theater credits include The Painter (Arcola Theatre), Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (Olivier Theatre), Parlour Song (Almeida Theatre) and Measure for Measure (National Theatre Complicité co-production).

TED LEVINE (Wheatley) can currently be seen in the TNT Network psychological thriller series The Alienist.  Based on the best-selling novel by Caleb Carr and set in the Gilded Age of New York City in 1896, the project is executive-produced by Jakob Verbruggen with Cary Fukunaga, Eric Roth and Hossein Amini producing.  Levine stars opposite Daniel Brühl, Luke Evans and Dakota Fanning playing Thomas Byrnes, the incredibly confident ex-police chief who is prominent in helping to unravel a mystery. 

Levine is currently filming the CIA drama tentatively titled The Torture Report, written and directed by Scott Z. Burns.  The film focuses on the CIA’s rendition and interrogation program following 9/11 and Levine stars as CIA Director John Brennan alongside a cast that includes Annette Bening and Adam Driver.  He has also wrapped the two-hander crime thriller A Violent Separation, written by Michael Arkof, directed by Kevin and Michael Goetz, opposite actors Brenton Thwaites, Ben Robson and Francesca Eastwood.

Levine was recently seen in a recurring role in creator Alan Ball’s HBO series Here and Now, opposite Tim Robbins and Holly Hunter.  He also appeared in the fourth season of the Showtime drama Ray Donovan where he recurred as Bill Primm, the proud owner of a casino in Primm, Nevada.  He starred in the feature film Bleed for This for director Ben Younger and executive producer Martin Scorsese.  The film starred Miles Teller as the five-time world champion boxer Vinny Paz, with Levine portraying Lou Duva, Vinny’s boxing manager.  

Levine starred with Diane Kruger and Demián Bichir in the FX Network crime thriller, The Bridge as Hank Wade, a lieutenant at the El Paso Police Department who is a mentor and protector to Kruger’s character.  Prior to The Bridge, Levine starred opposite Tony Shalhoub in the USA Network original series Monk.  Levine portrayed Captain Leland Stottlemeyer for eight critically acclaimed seasons, which continue on in syndication.  Other recent television credits include a recurring role on the Amazon thriller-comedy Mad Dogs executive produced by Shawn Ryan, and the IFC Network comedy miniseries The Spoils Before Dying with Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell.

Soon to be released is the fantasy feature Starbright from writer/director Francesco Lucente about a young orphan who escapes the realities of her life by fantasizing about a fairy-tale world.  Levine stars opposite John Rys-Davies, Diego Boneta and Alexandra Dowling.  Additional recent film credits include a modern reimagining of Shakespeare’s classic tale A Midsummer Night’s Dream written and directed by Casey Wilder Mott, as well as the independent thriller Bottom of the World for director Richard Sears opposite Jena Malone and Douglas Smith.  Levine also starred with Samuel L. Jackson and Felicity Huffman in Big Game, Little Boy opposite Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson and A Single Shot with Sam Rockwell and Jeffrey Wright.  

Levine’s extensive film credits include starring opposite Brad Pitt in the Warner Bros. feature The Assassination of Jesse James; Universal Pictures’ American Gangster for director Ridley Scott, in which he starred opposite Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington; and Shutter Island with Leonardo DiCaprio for director Martin Scorsese.  Additionally he has starred in Wonderland with Val Kilmer; Ironweed with Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep; Betrayed with Debra Winger and Tom Berenger; Heat with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro; Georgia with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Mare Winningham; Bullet with Mickey Rourke; Wild, Wild West with Will Smith and Kevin Kline; Ivan Reitman’s Evolution with David Duchovny and Julianne Moore; The Fast and the Furious with Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez; Jonathan Demme’s thriller The Truth About Charlie with Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton; Demme’s The Manchurian Candidate with Washington and Streep; Birth opposite Nicole Kidman; the critically acclaimed Memoirs of a Geisha; and one of his most intriguing roles, as the serial killer Jame Gumb in the classic thriller The Silence of the Lambs. 

Television appearances include a recurring role on David Milch and Michael Mann’s HBO series Luck with Dustin Hoffman, and a memorable guest-starring role in the first episode of AMC’s series Hell on Wheels.  Other television credits include Harlan County War, the USA Network miniseries Moby Dick, Tom Hanks’ From the Earth to the Moon for HBO, The Last Outlaw, Broken Promises: Taking Emily Back, Death Train, Dead and Alive: The Race for Gus Farace, Out of Season, The Fulfillment of Mary Gray and Two Fathers’ Justice.  Prior to joining the cast of Monk, Levine starred in the critically acclaimed ABC television series Wonderland, and earlier appeared in Michael Mann’s NBC series Crime Story.  

Levine toured as Sgt. Toomey in the national tour of the Broadway play Biloxi Blues.  Dedication to theater led Levine to turn to directing as well as acting, and he established the Dratman Theatre Company in Ann Arbor, Michigan, before moving to Chicago to join first the Remains ensemble and later the famed Steppenwolf Theatre Company.  His numerous stage credits include Sam Shepard’s Buried Child directed by Gary Sinise, Your Home in the West, El Salvador and Killers, at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company; Life and Limb for the Wisdon Bridge Theatre; and 70 Scenes of Halloween, Time of Your Life, A Class D Trial in Yokohama and The Tooth of the Game for the Remains Theatre.

Born and raised in San Francisco, BD WONG (Dr. Henry Wu) is the only actor ever to have received all five major New York Theater awards for a single role—namely his performance in M. Butterfly (his Broadway debut): the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Theatre World Award, the Clarence Derwent Award and the Tony Award.

Wong gained notice on HBO’s critically acclaimed series Oz as the resilient prison priest (Father Ray) for the show’s six-season run.  Then, for 11 seasons on the top-rated NBC series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit he played Dr. George Huang, an FBI forensic psychiatrist and expert on the criminal mind.

Wong co-starred in the NBC series Awake, in which he played Dr. John Lee, Det. Britten’s therapist in the red reality.  Other television credits include ABC’s All-American Girl (as Margaret Cho’s brother, Stuart) and HBO’s telefilms And the Band Played On and The Normal Heart, as well as guest-starring roles on Sesame Street, The X-Files, Madam Secretary, Nurse Jackie and NCIS: New Orleans.  He most recently has been seen in two drastically different television roles simultaneously: as the nefarious Hugo Strange on Gotham and as the mysterious trans-female hacker Whiterose on Mr. Robot.  For his work on the latter, he received Primetime Emmy, Gold Derby and Critics’ Choice Awards nominations.              

Wong has appeared in more than 20 feature films including Jurassic World, Focus, The Space Between Us, Stay, The Salton Sea, Executive Decision, Seven Years in Tibet, Jurassic Park, Father of the Bride (Part I and II) and The Freshman.  He can also be heard as the voice of Shang in the Walt Disney Pictures animated films Mulan and Mulan II. 

Wong’s additional New York theater credits include The Tempest, A Language of Their Own, As Thousands Cheer, Shanghai Moon, and the Broadway revivals of the musicals You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures (the latter for which he received a Drama League nomination for distinguished performance). He produced and directed The Yellow Wood for NYMF and Speak Up Connie, which starred Cindy Cheung for the All For One Festival, and he co-wrote and directed Alice Chan for the La Jolla Playhouse POP Tour. He recently starred regionally in The Orphan of Zhao at La Jolla Playhouse and San Francisco’s Studio A.C.T. In addition, he has starred in five productions of the one-man musical Herringbone, a project dear to his heart. This spring he will be appearing at the Atlantic Theatre Company in The Great Leap.

Wong published his first book, “Following Foo: The Electronic Adventures of the Chestnut Man” (Harper Entertainment), a memoir about the extremely premature birth of his son, in 2003.

Community service recognitions include those from the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Asian AIDS Project, GLAAD, National LGBTQ Task Force, Asian American Arts Alliance, Association of Asian-Pacific American Artists, East West Players, Second Generation, Organization of Chinese Americans and APICHA. He sits on the boards of both the Actors’ Fund of America and Rosie’s Theater Kids.

Wong resides in New York City.

JEFF GOLDBLUM (Ian Malcolm) is a stage, film and television actor.  His film credits include Isle of Dogs, Thor: Ragnarok, Independence Day: Resurgence, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Le Week-End, Adam Resurrected, The Life Aquatic, Igby Goes Down, Jurassic Park, Independence Day, Nashville, The Tall Guy, Annie Hall, The Big Chill and The Fly.

On television, his credits include Will & Grace and Portlandia.  Goldblum appeared in the Lincoln Center Theater’s production of Domesticated, The Pillowman on Broadway, the West End’s The Prisoner of Second Avenue and Speed the Plow at The Old Vic theatre. 

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

Born in Barcelona, J.A. BAYONA (Directed by) grew up with a passion for film.  He studied directing at the Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya (ESCAC). 

After directing two short films, Mis Vacaciones and El hombre Esponja, Bayona met screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez, who gifted him with the script for The Orphanage, which became his first feature as director.  The Orphanage had its world premiere at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival to a 10-minute standing ovation.  It was then released nationally in Spain, and its opening four-day box office was the highest of the year and at the time the second-highest ever for a Spanish film.

The Orphanage was nominated for 14 Goya Awards, and it won seven including Best New Director for Bayona.

His second feature film was The Impossible, which starred Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor and Tom Holland.  It was based on the powerful true story of a family’s survival of the tragic Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.  The Impossible grossed more than $180 million at the worldwide box office and brought Watts Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award^® nominations.  Holland received honors including an Empire Award for Best Male Newcomer.  The Impossible won five Goya Awards, including Best Director, and six Gaudí Awards, including Best Director.

Bayona’s most recent feature film as director was A Monster Calls, which starred Lewis MacDougall along with Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones and Liam Neeson.  This visually spectacular and stunningly emotional drama was based on the award-winning novel. 

A Monster Calls won nine Goya Awards, including Best Director, and eight Gaudí Awards.

Prior to making A Monster Calls, Bayona directed the first two episodes of Showtime’s series Penny Dreadful, which starred Eva Green and instantly attracted a loyal following.

In 2013, Bayona was distinguished with the National Prize of Cinematography, being the youngest person to receive this award.  He recently received two other awards: The Retrospective Award in the Festival of Malaga as well as CinemaCon’s International Filmmaker of the Year Award, which was presented to him by Frank Marshall. 

DEREK CONNOLLY (Written by) co-wrote 2015’s record-breaking Jurassic World, which made $1.67 billion at the worldwide box office.

Additional credits include Kong: Skull Island and Pacific Rim 2 for Legendary Pictures, and Safety Not Guaranteed, directed by Colin Trevorrow and produced by the Duplass Brothers and Big Beach Films.  The film won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature in 2013, and was nominated for the Grand Jury Price at Sundance in 2012.

Filmmaker COLIN TREVORROW (Written by/Executive Producer) relaunched the Jurassic franchise with the smash hit Jurassic World, which he co-wrote and directed.  The Universal release is the highest-grossing summer film in box office history.  

Most recently, Trevorrow directed Focus Features’ The Book of Henry, which starred Naomi Watts.  Previously, he directed the indie hit Safety Not Guaranteed, which won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

Up next, he will co-write and produce Intelligent Life for Amblin Entertainment.  Following, he will co-write and direct the third chapter in the Jurassic World trilogy, set for release on June 11, 2021. 

Michael Crichton (1942–2008) (Based on Characters Created by) was a writer and filmmaker, best known as the author of “Jurassic Park” and the creator of the television series ER.

 Crichton graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, received his MD from Harvard Medical School and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.  He taught courses in anthropology at Cambridge University and writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 While at Harvard, Crichton wrote novels under the pseudonyms John Lange and Jeffery Hudson.  During this period, he published seven books, including “A Case of Need,” which won the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1969.

“The Andromeda Strain,” Crichton’s first best seller, was published under his own name.  The movie rights for “The Andromeda Strain” were bought during his senior year at Harvard Medical School.   

 Crichton had a lifelong interest in computers.  His feature film Westworld was the first to employ computer-generated special effects.  Crichton’s pioneering use of computer programs for film production earned him an Academy Award^® for Technical Achievement in 1995.

 Crichton won Primetime Emmy, Peabody and Writers Guild of America awards for ER.

 One of the most popular writers in the world, he has sold more than 200 million books.  His novels have been translated into 40 languages and adapted into 15 films.  Crichton also published four nonfiction books, including an illustrated study of artist Jasper Johns.  Crichton remains the only person to simultaneously have the No. 1 book, film and television series in a given year.

 In 2002, a newly discovered dinosaur of the ankylosaur group was named for him: Crichtonsaurus bohlini. 

 Crichton is survived by his wife, Sherri, his daughter, Taylor, and his son, John Michael.

FRANK MARSHALL, p.g.a. (Produced by) is one of the premiere film producers in the entertainment industry.  His body of work has come to define a generation for moviegoers, and includes such timeless hits as Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and the Indiana Jones franchise.  In addition to a prolific producing career, Marshall has garnered wide acclaim as a film director, having brought to the screen such memorable movies as Arachnophobia and Alive.  Marshall was a producer of the 2015 blockbuster Jurassic World, which has grossed more than $1.6 billion worldwide, making it the fourth biggest box-office hit of all time after Avatar, Titanic and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Born in Los Angeles, Marshall is the son of American composer and conductor Jack Marshall.  Growing up, Marshall was an avid musician and sports enthusiast.  Before graduating from UCLA in 1968, Marshall ran track and cross-country for the school.  In addition, he spearheaded the university’s inaugural soccer team, becoming a three-year varsity letterman in the process.

Marshall began his motion picture career as an assistant to director Peter Bogdanovich. The filmmaker quickly promoted Marshall to serve as his location manager on the timeless movie The Last Picture Show.  Marshall then took on the responsibilities of associate producer for Bogdanovich as the pair continued their alliance, creating such notable films as Paper Moon and Nickelodeon.

Following his time with Bogdanovich, Marshall worked as a line producer on Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz.  In keeping with his love of music, Marshall helped Scorsese document the final touring concert of The Band, immortalizing the group’s performance for future generations.  In 1978, Marshall was hired by filmmakers George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to produce the iconic Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Released in 1981, the film was a huge international success and was nominated for nine Academy Awards^®.  That same year, along with future wife and fellow producer Kathleen Kennedy, Marshall teamed with Spielberg to form Amblin Entertainment.  Over the next decade, the trio established one of the most successful collaborations in motion picture history, bringing to the screen some of the most beloved movies of the modern era, including E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Poltergeist and The Goonies.

In 1991, Kennedy and Marshall ventured out on their own to form The Kennedy/Marshall Company, where the duo continued to produce critically acclaimed films such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the international hit franchise based on Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity.  In addition to a production shingle, the company serves as a harbor for Marshall to explore personal artistic interests, such as directing the hit movies Congo and Eight Below and the ESPN Films documentary Right to Play.  Marshall’s recent releases include Jason Bourne, Sully and Finding Oscar.  His upcoming projects include completing Orson Welles’ final film The Other Side of the Wind.  The musical Escape to Margaritaville, which Marshall produced alongside Jimmy Buffett, opened on Broadway in March 2018.

His accomplishments in the film industry have resulted in five Academy Awards^® nominations for producing titles as diverse as M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense to Gary Ross’ Seabiscuit.  In addition to his Oscar^® nominations, Marshall has been acknowledged for his work with the UCLA Award in Professional Achievement, the California Mentor Initiative’s Leadership Award, and the acclaimed American Academy of Achievement Award.  Along with Kennedy, Marshall was the 2008 recipient of the Producers Guild of America’s David O. Selznick Award for Career Achievement.  A year later, the duo was lauded with the Visual Effects Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

An industry veteran, Marshall has parlayed his success into a second career as a philanthropist.  Marshall’s love of sports led him to serve as a member of the United States Olympic Committee for more than a decade.  Marshall was bestowed with the Olympic Shield in 2005 in honor of his service to the committee and the Olympic movement; three years later, Marshall was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame.

Marshall serves on the boards of several organizations, including Athletes for Hope, the U.S. Center of SafeSport and The Archer School for Girls.

In 2012, Marshall took over as the sole principal of The Kennedy/Marshall Company when Kennedy became chairman of Lucasfilm Ltd.

PATRICK CROWLEY (Produced by/Unit Production Manager) is an American film producer with decades of international experience.  His box-office hits Jurassic World, Eight Below, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, Eagle Eye and The Other Guys have grossed over $3 billion at the worldwide box office.

He was an executive producer on Sleepless in Seattle, Legends of the Fall and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.  From 1994 to 2000, Crowley served as executive vice president of production at New Regency Productions.  He supervised the production of L.A. Confidential, Fight Club, Devil’s Advocate and Tin Cup, among others.

BELÉN ATIENZA, p.g.a. (Produced by) began working as a producer at Telecinco Cinema over 14 years ago.  Among the films produced during that time include Steven Soderbergh’s Che: Part One and Che: Part Two, Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, which was nominated for 14 Goya Awards and won eight, as well as being nominated for several Academy Awards^® and won three.

The Orphanage, J.A Bayona’s first feature film received 14 Goya Award nominations and won seven of them including Best New Director for Bayona and Best Original Screenplay for Sergio G. Sánchez.

After several years in Telecinco Cinema, she became an independent producer under the company she founded, Apaches Entertainment.

During this period, Atienza worked in a slate of projects that have been successfully developed and produced Intruders, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s thriller which starred Clive Owen; and Bayona’s The Impossible, which starred Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor and became one of Spain’s biggest box office successes and which garnered Watts a nomination for Best Actress at the Academy Awards^®.

Besides these films’ production she has also participated as a co-executive producer in Bayona’s pilot episode of the Showtime series Penny Dreadful.

Atienza’s latest projects include Bayona’s A Monster Calls, which was awarded with nine Goya Awards in 2016, and Sergio G. Sánchez’s directorial debut Marrowbone.

One of the industry’s most successful and influential filmmakers, STEVEN SPIELBERG (Executive Producer) is chairman of Amblin Partners.  Formed in 2015, Spielberg leads the content creation company in partnership with Participant Media, Reliance Entertainment, Entertainment One, Alibaba Pictures and Universal Pictures.

Spielberg is also, collectively, the top-grossing director of all time, having helmed such blockbusters as Jaws, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, the Indiana Jones franchise and Jurassic Park.  Among his myriad honors, he is a three-time Academy Award^® winner.

Spielberg took home his first two Oscars^®, for Best Director and Best Picture, for the internationally lauded Schindler’s List, which received a total of seven Oscars^®.  The film was also named the best picture of 1993 by many of the major critics organizations, in addition to winning seven BAFTAs and three Golden Globe Awards, both including Best Picture and Best Director.  Spielberg also won the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award for his work on the film.

Spielberg won his third Academy Award^®, for Best Director, for the World War II drama Saving Private Ryan, which was the highest-grossing domestic release of 1998.  It was also one of the year’s most honored films, earning four additional Oscars^®, as well as two Golden Globe Awards: Best Motion Picture–Drama and Best Director–Motion Picture.  It also won numerous critics groups awards in the same categories.  Spielberg also won another DGA Award and shared a Producers Guild of America (PGA) Award with the film’s other producers.  That same year, the PGA also presented Spielberg with the prestigious Milestone Award for his historic contribution to the motion picture industry.

He has earned Academy Award^® nominations for Best Director for Lincoln, Munich, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  He also earned DGA Award nominations for those films, as well as for Jaws, The Color Purple (his first DGA win), Empire of the Sun and Amistad.  With 11 to date, Spielberg has been honored by his peers with more DGA Award nominations than any other director.  In 2000, he received the DGA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.  He is also the recipient of the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Cecil B. DeMille Award, the Kennedy Center Honors and numerous other career tributes.

In 2012, Spielberg directed Academy Award^® winner Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln, based in part on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” with a screenplay by Tony Kushner.  The DreamWorks Pictures/20^th Century Fox film, in association with Participant Media, garnered 12 Academy Award^® nominations and earned $275 million worldwide.  The film won two Oscars^®, including Day-Lewis’ third Best Actor Oscar^® for his portrayal of the iconic 16^th president and for Best Production Design.

Spielberg’s 2015 dramatic thriller Bridge of Spies, which starred Tom Hanks, received six Academy Award^® nominations including Best Picture, with Mark Rylance winning for Best Supporting Actor.  That same year, Spielberg was also an executive producer on Jurassic World, which earned over $1.6 billion worldwide.  Directed by Colin Trevorrow and which starred Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, it was the fourth film in the Jurassic series.

In November 2017, The Post, a drama inspired by the Washington Post’s first female publisher, Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep), and its driven editor, Ben Bradlee (Hanks), opened to wide critical and audience acclaim.  Spielberg’s most recent film, Ready Player One, based on the popular science-fiction novel by Ernest Cline, was released in theaters on March 29, 2018 and is already considered a hit by global audiences and reviewers.

Spielberg’s career began with the 1968 short film Amblin, which led to his becoming the youngest director ever signed to a long-term studio deal.  He directed episodes of such TV shows as Night Gallery, Marcus Welby, M.D. and Columbo, and gained special attention for his 1971 telefilm Duel.  Three years later, he made his feature-film directorial debut on The Sugarland Express, from a screenplay he co-wrote.  His next film was Jaws, which was the first film to break the $100 million mark.

In 1984, Spielberg formed his own production company, Amblin Entertainment.  Under the Amblin banner, he served as producer or executive producer on such hits as Gremlins, The Goonies, the Back to the Future franchise, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, An American Tail, Twister, The Mask of Zorro and the Men in Black films.  In 1994, Spielberg partnered with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen to form the original DreamWorks Studios.  The studio enjoyed both critical and commercial successes, including three consecutive Best Picture Academy Award^® winners: American Beauty, Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind.  In its history, DreamWorks has also produced or co-produced a wide range of features, including the Transformers blockbusters; Clint Eastwood’s World War II dramas Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima, the latter earning a Best Picture Oscar^® nomination; Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers; and The Ring, to name only a few.  Under the DreamWorks banner, Spielberg also directed such films as War of the Worlds, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can and A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

Spielberg has not limited his success to the big screen.  He was an executive producer on the long-running Primetime Emmy Award-winning TV drama ER, produced by his Amblin Entertainment company and Warner Bros. Television for NBC.  On the heels of their experience on Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg and Hanks teamed to executive produce the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, based on Stephen Ambrose’s book about a U.S. Army unit in Europe during World War II.  Among its many awards, the project won both Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe awards for Outstanding Miniseries.  Spielberg and Hanks more recently reunited to executive produce the acclaimed 2010 HBO miniseries The Pacific, this time focusing on the Marines in World War II’s Pacific battle with the Japanese.  The Pacific won eight Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Miniseries.

Spielberg also executive produced the Primetime Emmy Award-winning Sci-Fi Channel miniseries Taken, the TNT miniseries Into the West, the Showtime series United States of Tara, NBC’s Smash, TNT’s Falling Skies, CBS’ Under the Dome and Extant.  He was also executive producer on the HBO Films movie All the Way, which starred Primetime Emmy Award winner Bryan Cranston, and the Netflix docuseries Five Came Back.  He is currently executive producer on CBS’s Bull, which was renewed for a second season.  His Amblin Television is a producer of FX’s The Americans, which has received several Primetime Emmy Award nominations including two wins for Margo Martindale for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.  The series also won a Peabody Award in 2015. 

Apart from his filmmaking work, Spielberg has also devoted his time and resources to many philanthropic causes.  The impact of his work on Schindler’s List led him to establish the Righteous Persons Foundation with all his profits from the film.  He also founded Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, which became the USC Shoah Foundation-Institute for Visual History and Education in 2006.  The Institute has recorded nearly 55,000 interviews with survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides, and is dedicated to making the testimonies a compelling voice for education and action.  In addition, Spielberg is the co-founder and chairman emeritus of the Starlight Children’s Foundation.

Cinematographer OSCAR FAURA (Director of Photography) is best known for his collaborations with acclaimed Spanish director J.A. Bayona.  Faura shot the international hits The Orphanage (2007) and The Impossible (2012).   For his work on The Impossible, Faura received the Gaudi Award (Catalan Film Academy) for Best Cinematography.  His most recent film with Bayona was A Monster Calls (2015), for which he received the Goya Award (Spanish Film Academy) for Best Cinematography and another Gaudi Award.

Faura was the cinematographer on The Imitation Game (2014), directed by Morten Tyldum.  The film received eight Academy Award^® nominations and Faura received an ASC Award nomination from the American Society of Cinematographers. 

Born in Barcelona in 1975, Faura graduated from the Barcelona Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya (ESCAC).

Prior to designing the sequel to Jurassic World, ANDY NICHOLSON’s (Production Designer) most notable collaboration has been with director Alfonso Cuarón on Gravity, for which he received Oscar^® and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award nominations for production design and won the Art Directors Guild (ADG) Award for Excellence in Production Design Award.

Nicholson is currently in Los Angeles designing Captain Marvel for Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, and, in 2016, he served as the production designer on Justin Kurzel’s Assassin’s Creed.  Other film credits include Neil Burger’s Divergent and Andrew Niccol’s The Host.

Nicholson has worked several times with director Tim Burton, starting in 1999 as an art director on Sleepy Hollow, for which he won an ADG Award.  He earned another ADG Award nomination for his work as an art director on Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and has since collaborated with the director as a supervising art director on Alice in Wonderland and as a visual development art director on Frankenweenie.

Nicholson won another ADG Award for his work on Chris Weitz’s The Golden Compass and received ADG Award nominations for Paul Greengrass’ The Bourne Ultimatum and Joe Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger.

His credits as a supervising art director also include Johnston’s The Wolfman, Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla, Nancy Meyers’ The Holiday and Anthony Minghella’s Breaking and Entering.  His additional art direction credits include Tony Scott’s Spy Game, Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy and Neil Jordan’s The Good Thief.

As editor, BERNAT VILAPLANA (Editor) previously collaborated with director J.A. Bayona on The Impossible, A Monster Calls and on the first two episodes of the hit television series Penny Dreadful.

For director Guillermo del Toro, Vilaplana has edited Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy II: The Golden Army and Crimson Peak.  

Vilaplana is a partner in the Spanish production company Corte y Confección de Películas.

SAMMY SHELDON DIFFER (Costumer Designer) was born in Manchester and started her career at the Royal Exchange Theatre as a costume maker, then studied costume design at Wimbledon College of Art from 1990 to 1993.  After graduating with a degree, she moved into designing costumes for pop promos and advertising before becoming an assistant designer on films, including Ridley Scott’s Gladiator and Jake Scott’s Plunkett & Macleane.  She went on to design costumes for Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down, and the mockumentary The Calcium Kid, which starred Orlando Bloom.  Differ has received British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award nominations for her work on Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game, which starred Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley; The Merchant of Venice, which starred Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons; and a BAFTA Award nomination for the BBC’s modern adaptation of Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath.  She received Costume Designers Guild Award nominations for her work on The Imitation Game, Ex Machina, X-Men: First Class and V for Vendetta.  Other film credits include Kick-Ass 2, Gulliver’s Travels, Kick-Ass, Green Zone, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Stardust, Kinky Boots and A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Differ’s more recent film credits include Justin Kurzel’s Assassin’s Creed, Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man and Alex Garland’s Annihilation.  She is currently designing costumes for Walt Disney Pictures’ Artemis Fowl, directed by Kenneth Branagh.

Composer MICHAEL GIACCHINO (Music by) has credits that feature some of the most popular and acclaimed film projects in recent history, including Inside Out, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Zootopia and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.  In 2009, Giacchino’s score for the Pixar hit Up earned him an Oscar^®, a Golden Globe Award, a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award, the Critics’ Choice Award and a Grammy Award.

Giacchino studied filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.  After college, he landed a marketing job at Walt Disney Pictures and began studies in music composition, first at Juilliard and then at UCLA.  He moved from marketing to producing in the newly formed Disney Interactive division, where he had the opportunity to write music for video games.

After moving to DreamWorks Interactive, he was asked to score the temp track for the video game adaptation of “The Lost World: Jurassic Park.”  Subsequently, Steven Spielberg hired him as the composer, and it became the first PlayStation game to have a live orchestral score, recorded with members of the Seattle Symphony.  Giacchino went on to score numerous video games, including Spielberg’s “Medal of Honor” series.

Giacchino’s work in video games sparked the interest of J.J. Abrams, and thus began their long-standing relationship that would lead to scores for the hit television series Alias and Lost, and the feature films Mission: Impossible III, Star Trek, Super 8 and Star Trek: Into Darkness.

Additional projects include collaborations with Disney Imagineering on music for Space Mountain, Star Tours (with John Williams) and the Ratatouille ride in Disneyland Paris. 

Giacchino also was the musical director of the 81^st Annual Academy Awards^®.  His music can be heard in concert halls internationally with Star Trek, Star Trek: Into Darkness and Star Trek: Beyond, Ratatouille and Jurassic World films being performed live-to-picture with a full orchestra.

Last year, Giacchino scored War for the Planet of the Apes, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Pixar’s Coco.  Upcoming projects include The Incredibles 2, which is set for release this summer.

Giacchino serves as the governor of the Music Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and sits on the advisory board of Education Through Music - Los Angeles.

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