Jurassic World 2 star James Cromwell has revealed how his character in the new film is connected to original Jurassic Park movie - he’s playing the scientific partner of Jurassic Park creator John Hammond (Richard Attenborough).

With a domestic gross of $652 million and another $1.018 billion in foreign territories for a whopping worldwide box office tally of $1.6 billion in 2015, there was no question that plenty of life was still left in the dinosaur saga created by director Steven Spielberg in 1993. And while director Colin Trevorrow clearly tried to make Jurassic World an entirely new entity, he also layered in ties to Spielberg’s trilogy in the 2015 blockbuster.

Director J.A. Bayona looks to be continuing Trevorrow’s trend with Jurassic World 2. Following the announcement earlier this week that Jeff Goldblum signed on to reprise his role as Jurassic Park favorite Ian Malcolm in Jurassic World 2, Cromwell says that his character played a key role in bringing dinosaurs back to life in the first place. In a new interview on Ora’s Larry King Now, Cromwell revealed:

“The character Richard Attenborough played, I’m his partner, Benjamin Lockwood. We developed the technology of being able to clone the genes. And so I’m trying to deal with the blowback from what we have done.”

While Jurassic World and its sequel’s ties to the original Jurassic Park films are unavoidable – both film series surround dinosaur tourist theme attractions gone awry, after all – it’s still fun to see the likes of Trevorrow and Bayona not only paying respect to actors like Goldblum, but digging even deeper to find connections between new characters like Cromwell’s and Hammond in Jurassic Park, who effectively built the foundation for Jurassic World.

If Jurassic World 2 – pegged for a June 22, 2018, release – continues the box office trend set by its predecessor (and there’s no reason to believe otherwise), hopefully the filmmakers behind future Jurassic World installments will find a way to bring other Jurassic Park luminaries back into the fold in a meaningful way.

We already know that Sam Neill won’t make an appearance in Jurassic World 2, nor will Star Wars: The Last Jedi star Laura Dern. And while Neill suggested in an interview last year that his Dr. Alan Grant is “retired from paleontology” and “sick to death of dinosaurs and running,” Dern says she’d love to reprise her Jurassic Park character Ellie Sattler in a future Jurassic World film. Considering how big the space is for Jurassic World’s creatures to roam in, there’s plenty of room for Grant and Dern to return.

Source: Ora/Larry King Now

  • Jurassic World 2 Release Date: 2018-06-22