Author: Chris Thilk / Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Three years ago, Universal’s Jurassic World revived the Jurassic Park franchise begun by director Steven Spielberg, who first brought “Blockbustersaurus rex” to theaters in 1993.
The franchise had lain dormant for more than a decade, but the 2015 film roared back with a new set of characters and a new park. The story largely ignored both 1997’s Lost World: Jurassic Park and 2011’s Jurassic Park III, instead setting up a situation where the public had embraced the genetically modified dinosaurs that inhabited an island theme park. Now, Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are back for even more dino-mayhem.
To sell this year’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Universal has engineered a campaign that combines much of what made the 2015 series revival a hit with audiences. The new movie has already received a mixed 57 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes but is expected to bring in $130 million-plus this weekend, which would make it the third-biggest opener of 2018 behind Avengers: Infinity War and Black Panther. The title has already grossed $372 million overseas, where it opened early in order to avoid direct competition with the World Cup soccer tournament.
The Posters
The first teaser poster was revealed almost a year ago in July 2017, announcing the subtitle of the movie at the same time. As with all the Jurassic movies, it used the familiar logo with the T-Rex skeleton.
This time the rest of the poster is filled with embers falling all around it, indicating that chaos was in some manner ensuing. Using “Life finds a way” as the copy point also hinted at the return of Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm, who hasn’t appeared in the series since 1995’s Lost World: Jurassic Park.The next couple posters took us right into the action. One featured a wide shot of the T-Rex roaring as the volcano erupted behind it and other dinosaurs ran away around it. The other zooms in for a close up of Howard and Pratt huddling behind one of the rover balls for safety amidst that chaos. Both declare “The park is gone.”
An IMAX-exclusive poster showed a T-Rex holding one end of a ladder that’s been lowered from a helicopter, with an unidentifiable human being stuck in the middle of that tug-of-war and trying desperately to hang on. On the Real 3D poster the leads are seen looking at something off-camera to help remind people of what is really the core relationship in this series. For Dolby Cinemas the same pair is shown but this time Claire is added, the camera positioned inside the open mouth of a dinosaur apparently hunting them.
The real champion of the posters, though, is the eye-popping, over-the-top
The Trailers
Howard’s Claire and Pratt’s Owen are reuniting as the Dec. 7 first trailer (54 million views on YouTube) opens, quickly establishing that their romance at the end of the first movie didn’t last. They’re still sparring verbally but she needs him to come with her back to the island because a volcano is about to explode and the dinosaurs need to be rescued. “Life … finds a way” we hear as it ends.
Universal released a number of teasers to build anticipation for that trailer, using new footage and clip complications from the earlier films in the series. Some took a more meta approach, showing Pratt and Howard reviewing marketing materials before things get weird. Some were more along the lines of a behind-the-scenes featurette.
The second trailer (27 million views on YouTube) on Feb. 4 was actually run as an extended TV spot during the Super Bowl. It starts out with a dinosaur encroaching on a small child who huddles in bed, afraid of what’s coming. Cut to Claire asking if Owen remembers the first time he saw a dinosaur and the feeling of awe he had.
The final trailer (21 million views on YouTube) on April 18, once again preceded by a number of teasers like this, offers much more of the story. Claire is convinced to return to the island…
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