J.A. Bayona was the first choice to direct ‘Jurassic World’.
The 42-year-old filmmaker – who has helmed the much-anticipated ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ – was originally wanted to direct the long-awaited ‘Jurassic Park’ follow-up, but he declined the offer due to a lack of preparation time.
Producer Frank Marshall recalled: "He said, ‘I need a lot of time. I know what I need. I need my prep time. I have a certain process I go through and all that. And I just don’t think I can do it. So thanks, but no thanks.’"
Ultimately, ‘Jurassic World’ was helmed by Colin Trevorrow, and the 41-year-old filmmaker – who has also helped to write ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ – has been working closely with Bayona over recent months.
Producer Pat Crowley shared with SlashFilm: "Colin [is] the architect of the second one and the third one. And he and J.A. hit it off.
"So J.A. then felt much more comfortable … he liked the original ‘Jurassic World’. And he knew the direction Colin wanted to go in.
"So it wasn’t as if it was just some script that he had to try to adapt. And they kind of they shared [ideas] together. So that was a big kind of thing."
Meanwhile, Trevorrow recently revealed that ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ will share similarities with Steven Spielberg’s 1993 original.
He explained: "If I could contextualise each film, I would say ‘Jurassic World’ was an action adventure, ‘Fallen Kingdom’ is kind of a horror suspense film, and ‘Jurassic World 3’ will be a science thriller in the same way that ‘Jurassic Park’ was."
J.A. Bayona was the first choice to direct Jurassic World
