While the Jurassic World films have included appearances from DNA scientist Dr. Wu and a brief cameo from Jeff, er, Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm in last year’s Fallen Kingdom, the sequel trilogy has largely avoided the indelible characters of Steven Spielberg’s classic Jurassic Park films. But in the upcoming Jurassic World 3, the original gang is back – Goldblum, Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant, and Laura Dern as Ellie Sattler – ready to rub shoulders with the new trilogy’s Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) and face the dinosaurs that have been set loose on the American mainland.
Speaking exclusively to Empire in the upcoming 2020 Preview Issue, returning director Colin Trevorrow, who’s co-writing the upcoming third film alongside Emily Carmichael, opened up about why now was the time to bring back the Park trio – and how the film will continue the legacy of the original films. “We’d have had to come up with a reason why Ellie, Malcolm and Grant all went to the theme park on the exact same day it broke down – again,” he explains of their absence in Jurassic World. “The next film allows the legacy characters to be a part of the story in an organic way. Emily Carmichael and I call it ‘Jurassic Park VI’, because it is.”
While Malcolm argued for the surviving dinosaurs' extinction in his brief Fallen Kingdom appearance, the last time we saw Grant and Sattler was in 2001’s Jurassic Park III – where Grant was tricked into returning to the dino-infested Isla Sorna, and Sattler was revealed to have settled down with a husband (disappointingly not Grant) and kids. Soon we’ll see where they all ended up 20 years later. “You start asking the most basic questions: who are these people now? What do they make of the new world they’re living in, and how do they feel about being part of its history?” teases Trevorrow. “Ultimately it will be in collaboration with the actors. They know and love these characters. We’ll do it together.”
Read more about Trevorrow’s plans for Jurassic World 3 in the upcoming 2020 Preview Issue of Empire – on sale from Thursday 31 October.