According to Deadline, Jurassic World: Dominion has wrapped its 18 month long unprecedented shoot at Pinewood Studios here in the UK, powering through the global COVID pandemic to finish the sixth instalment in the Jurassic Park franchise.
The continuation of shooting for this film required 40,000 COVID tests, with an average of 100 returning positive (some of which were apparently false positives) and between $6-8 million spent on safety and emergency protocols, keeping their cast and key crew isolated in their own private bubble for the last few months of production. Universal also commissioned a private medical facility called ‘Your Doctor’ to manage the entire production’s medical requirements.
Donna Langley, Chairman Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, told Deadline: “As we continue to contend with the challenges facing our industry during a global pandemic, the collaborative nature of this production allowed us to safely complete nearly 100 days of shooting, and we are so proud of what this team was able to accomplish.”
Jurassic World: Dominion was the first major studio movie, as a Universal big budget blockbuster, to go back into production after the pandemic shut everything down. Director Colin Trevorrow is hopeful that the film can continue towards a global release in Summer 2022, and says that he hopes “that close proximity to each other has made the movie better. Everything we were going through emotionally we would share […] I think the movie will be stronger for it.”
The main cast was made up of actors from the original Jurassic Park Sam Neil, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum as well as Jurassic World stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard and newcomers to the movie such as Mamoudou Athie and DeWanda Wise. According to Trevorrow, “because of the protocols, the actors didn’t go far from set. The distance was stripped away.”
The filmmaker, however, is seeing this as a positive experience. Despite production being delayed from February 2020 to July 2020 with more restrictions in October due to positive COVID results, Trevorrow says “I’ve never been as immersed in a filmmaking process […] “This movie is about the need to co-exist and survive together. If this pandemic has taught us anything it’s that we need the different generations to protect each other. It was the right movie to be making at this moment.”
Let us hope that he is right, and that soon we will be able to see the gates to Jurassic World open on the big screen once again.
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