Ever since the Jurassic Park franchise returned in 2015 with Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World, one of the main criticisms of the most recent installments was an over-reliance on nostalgia. Obviously, that’s something of a recurring theme in today’s studio blockbusters given the mixed reactions to the latest Star Wars and Terminator movies, but there’s always been a fine line between breathing new life into an established brand and simply rehashing what came before.
Jurassic World may have introduced a fresh batch of characters and featured a fully-functioning park on Isla Nublar, but it still relied heavily on recognizable locations and iconography from the past. Follow-up Fallen Kingdom tried to remedy this by blowing up the whole island during the first act, but it still came off as a little too similar to original sequel The Lost World, this time with a mansion substituted in for the entire city of San Diego.
Long-running franchises seemingly always bring back the original stars at some point, but Fallen Kingdom played with these expectations by having Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm show up in the movie for a brief cameo. However, the still-untitled Jurassic World 3 is doubling down on the nostalgia craze by bringing back Goldblum, Sam Neill and Laura Dern’s characters from the 1993 classic as featured players, with the original trio set to team up with Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard for more dinosaur-related adventures.
Not only that, but sources close to We Got This Covered – the same ones who said Bill Murray would be back for Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which we now know to be true – have told us that Universal are planning on making three more Jurassic World movies after this next one, and the studio hopes that Goldblum, Neill and Dern will stick around for at least one of them, with the creative team behind the franchise apparently still working out if the focus for the Jurassic series going forward is the past or the future.
It’s unclear as of yet what role they would play, but at this point, it wouldn’t be surprising to hear that Joseph Mazzello’s Tim will be returning to action in Jurassic World 3 as an adult as well, with the now 36 year-old carving out a solid career for himself after appearing in the likes of The Social Network, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Bohemian Rhapsody. For now, though, we’ll just have to wait and see who else ends up appearing in the threequel, as well as the further three films that are set to follow.
