Why do they keep going back to Isla Nublar?
Seriously, has no one learned their lesson? The fictional island of dinosaurs off the coast of Costa Rica, where Jurassic Park and its 2015 sequel, Jurassic World, were both set, is bad news. Each time humans go back there, the genetically-engineered dinosaurs wreak havoc and innocent people die. Yet we keep returning again and again, hoping that something will be different. It will never be different.
Of course, Universal Pictures, like all movie studios, enjoys making money. And the Jurassic Park franchise makes a lot of it: Jurassic World grossed $1.6 billion worldwide at the box office. So here we are, back on Isla Nublar again, for the sequel to Jurassic World, titled Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
To ramp up excitement for Thursday’s full-length trailer, Universal released a 15-second trailer for the trailer, which is a thing that a lot of film distributors do now. The preview trailer shows our hero, Chris Pratt, running out of the jungle to escape a stampede of dinosaurs as what looks like a volcano erupts in the background:
Quick factoid: This was clearly filmed at Hollywood’s favorite mountain ridge, at Kualoa Ranch in Oahu, Hawaii. The stand-in for Isla Nublar since Jurassic Park, Kualoa has also been featured in dozens of other TV shows and films. (I’ve visited, and it’s a stunning day trip if you’re ever in the neighborhood.)
In the last few years, the “trailer for a trailer” concept has turned into a full-fledged phenomenon. Film studios make them for many of their biggest releases, especially “event movies” like Fallen Kingdom that already have lots of fan enthusiasm surrounding them. Here are a few recent examples:
- It
- Avengers: Infinity War
- The Fate of the Furious
- Blade Runner 2049
- Spider-Man: Homecoming
- The Mummy
- Jurassic World
- Warcraft
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- Terminator Genisys
These trailer teases are essentially just advertisements for the upcoming official trailers, which are, themselves, also ads. The phenomenon has made its way into television too.