You’re doing some indie movies next? Is it just going to keep switching up, trying to as you said earlier build up that body of work?
Yeah. The next movie I’m going to do is significantly smaller; no dinosaurs, not in 3D, there will not be toys released. We’re going to make a movie close to my home in Vermont and then I’m going to figure out what the next step is [from] there.
There’s some nice meta-touches in “Jurassic World” addressing the inherent problems with blockbusters, sequels and topping yourself. There’s even some winky self-deprecation.
Make no mistake, Derek and I wrote about what was going on at the time, which is that a corporation had a release date set and they were going to make this movie whether it was a good idea or not. We’re like, “All right, well let’s make a movie about why ‘Jurassic Park 4’ exists.” In the end, we didn’t want to make it too meta. It’s not that kind of thing. It was what our reality was and the lesson here is people will make the same mistakes again and again as long as there’s money on the table. We can apply that to this theme park and why they would make this new genetic hybrid because there’s money to be made.
“A corporation had a release date set and they were going to make this movie whether it was a good idea or not. We’re like, ‘All right, well let’s make a movie about why ‘Jurassic Park 4’ exists.’ ”
A potential risky commentary, but I think it works.
That’s what the fun of it was for us. Can we go in making something look like its going to be some kind of meta commentary, but to me, if I’m saying anything it’s that, “Look, by the time you get to the end of the movie, you have given in.” You hopefully have submitted to the joy and to the fun that is inherent in this franchise. That would be the biggest success, if by the end you’re like, “Whatever, man, I’m 8 years old. I’m on board.”
I know you’ve responded, but I wanted to discuss Joss Whedon for a second. I feel like if anyone should understand footage out of context it should be a fellow filmmaker.
Right. If anything, it just made me really want him and everyone else to see that in context. I’m very proud of the arc that Bryce Dallas Howard’s character makes in this movie and a little bit impatient for people to see how that was designed and what we were really doing because there’s a little bit of, “No, no, no, that’s the point; it’s what we’re doing.” In the end, I think on more of a macro scale, I was frustrated and almost offended on his behalf in the level of anger and nastiness that was thrown around in the wake of that and in the wake of ‘Avengers.’
I hope people understand how much people like Joss and I care about what we’re doing and how we share in people’s love for these movies that are so personal to all of us. That, to me, if there’s any message in all of this, it’s we can all agree or disagree about what is the right way to treat these properties that we care so much about, but do recognize that we do care and there’s not a lot of cynicism at work here.
Did you feel that crush of the weight of fan expectation? I know at one point early on some spoilers leaked and you guys responded.
That was a bummer. But that was a while ago and it really did hurt my feelings at the time. I felt personally hurt by it and now I’m realizing, look, it’s a bit par for the course; it’s part of this job. In the end, marketing has shown a lot of that stuff. I think to me, the next time I do one of these bigger movies, I’ll think about it in the context of what are people going to know before they see the movie and what will they not. It’s not something that can be controlled always.
“I would just encourage people: your childhood belongs to you and don’t give anyone, especially me the power to ruin your childhood. “
On the flip side of that, this is being very candid with you, but I have really embraced the lowered expectations of this film in recent weeks. I’ve seen a lot of the general consensus that this thing was going to be a piece of shit and to me, I have some surprises left in this movie. To me, one of the big surprises is that I know the movie is good. Let that be the surprise — that the movie doesn’t suck.
Do lowered expectations have anything to do with the sequels not being as well received? Or the big gap between “Jurassic Park 3” and your film?
That expectation is not just an issue that I deal with. It is a reality and because all of the fans care a lot about this stuff and they really want it to be good. One thing that I tend to bristle at sometimes — I sound like my grandmother who uses the word “bristle” — but is the idea that someone’s childhood is being ruined by one of these movies not working the way that it should. I would just encourage people: your childhood belongs to you and don’t give anyone, especially me, the power to ruin your childhood.
It’s too important and too valuable a thing and all we can do as filmmakers is add an addendum to your childhood and hopefully, make you feel the way that you did just a little bit back then. But also, recognize that this is for a new group of children who I think deserve their own “Jurassic Park” movie that feels like theirs. That’s really why we’re doing what we’re doing.
My standard line is “maybe you should have had a better childhood,” but I’m also a jerk.
[Laughs]. Ouch, too mean. Where I live, in Vermont, there’s this thing that women know about men which is this disease: their childhood was so idyllic that nothing in the rest of their life can ever be satisfying. It’s almost a plague. I think that almost applies to some of these movies. The movies of our particular childhood were so great that it’s almost impossible to recapture that magic, especially as adults. I remember when I had some other bloggers came to the set and one of them asked me, “Is this going to be better than ‘Jurassic Park’?”
I said flat out, “No.” I think he was just surprised at that level of honesty. I’m like, “Look, man, you’re not going to see this movie as a 9-year-old and there’s just no way that it can have the same effect on you as it did on you when you were 9, but it can have its own special effect on you when you’re in your 30s and hopefully, you’ll bring a kid with you and it’ll have that effect on them.”
Nostalgia and our affection for things we experienced as a child are much bigger than we realize I think. It totally affects our relationship to certain movies. I never saw “Jurassic Park” until much later in life because as teenager I’d discovered David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, and others.
Right. I was 16 at the time and so I wasn’t a child, either, so it certainly wasn’t the same thing for me like “Back to the Future,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark” or “Star Wars.”
“I have really embraced the lowered expectations of this film in recent weeks. I’ve seen a lot of the general consensus that this thing was going to be a piece of shit and to me, I have some surprises left in this movie.”
All those were big touchstones for me too. But imagine seeing them cold for the first time having not seen them as a child? We’d have a totally different reaction to them.
I think that my job was to make something that could work both for the super deep fans — and believe me, they exist, they care deeply — and people who weren’t that at all and also, people who are being introduced to it for the first time. That’s a lot of different masters to serve. What we did was really designed to make sure there was something for all of them. I did try to not lean too hard onto the nostalgia and to bury a lot of the references in ways that if you want it, it’s there, but if you’re not looking for it, it’s not going to get in the way of the story that’s being told.
“Jurassic Park” opens nationwide on Friday, June 12. Here’s our review.
