Don’t Worry, Jurassic Park’s Original Stars Will Be ‘Big Characters’ In Jurassic World: Dominion

Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern in the original Jurassic Park
(Image credit: (Universal))

Back in 1993, the Jurassic Park movies all started with Sam Neill’s Dr. Alan Grant, Laura Dern’s Dr. Ellie Satler and Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm taking a field trip to see a place called Jurassic Park prior to its opening. Amidst their awe of advanced theme park technology, these experts in their field saw firsthand how its creation could spell out some major trouble for the world as they knew it. In Jurassic World: Dominion, their dark predictions will come true.

We already know that all three original stars from Jurassic Park are officially returning for Dominion. When CinemaBlend spoke to Colin Trevorrow to ring in the film coming one year from now, the writer/director confirmed that Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum are going to be back and in the field again within the Jurassic franchise. In his words:

They are such big characters in the film. It's not a cameo. They're in the whole movie, so I think it'll be difficult to market the film without revealing them because they're all over it. I think that their roles are just as big as Chris and Bryce's are. So it's really a story that is two parallel lines that are getting closer and closer together until they collide. The thing that I could do that would show the most respect to these characters is put them on an adventure together and not just have them sit around. I don't want them commenting on what's going on. I want him to be in it. So that's what we did.

Hold onto your butts! The Jurassic Park stars will be major characters in the trilogy alongside Chris Pratt’s Owen Grady and Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire Dearing. During our interview, I asked Colin Trevorrow about his thoughts on how he might decide to reveal the trio’s reunion, and as the director explained, their return is so interlaced in the DNA of Jurassic World: Dominion that audiences won’t be waiting for a blink-and-you’ll-miss cameo.

We’ve seen some hints here and there of Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum finding a larger role in Jurassic World: Dominion via set photos (see below), but I’ll admit, I remained apprehensive of them taking the lead following Dr. Ian Malcolm’s minimal role in the prior installment, Fallen Kingdom. The marketing saw Goldblum heavily featured, but when we caught the movie, he only appeared in two quick scenes.

A photo posted by on

As Colin Trevorrow revealed, the story we’ve been following featuring Owen Grady and Claire Dearing will intersect with the original storyline from the Jurassic Park movies, and the original stars won’t be on the sidelines. They are going to be completely in the action of Dominion. And that’s truly the dream of any Jurassic Park fan, because the chemistry of those three with Industrial Light and Magic’s groundbreaking dinosaurs is how we fell in love with the franchise.

We’re still a year out from Jurassic World: Dominion, but fans can see a first look at the movie's dinosaurs and action this month at an IMAX screening of F9. It has been announced that starting June 25, in front of the Fast and the Furious movie’s theatrical opening, only audiences who buy an IMAX ticket will see five minutes of exclusive footage from Jurassic World movie coming on June 10, 2021.

Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.