Casting Scarlett Johansson as the face of the next Jurassic World movie felt like a no-brainer for director Gareth Edwards.
He remembers sitting in a massive room inside Universal headquarters with Steven Spielberg, the father of the franchise. Everyone began spitballing their pie-in-the-sky pitches for the three main characters: Zora Bennett, a covert ops soldier; Duncan Kincaid, Zora’s longtime partner in crime; and Dr. Henry Loomis, the paleontologist along for the ride.
“It felt like at least one of them was going to be an A-lister,” Edwards tells Entertainment Weekly of the casting process. “There were your obvious names floating around, and then at one point, Steven said, ‘Well, if we don’t give it to Scarlett, she’s going to kill me because she’s been pursuing a Jurassic film for ages.’ My eyes lit up.”
Jasin Boland/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment
Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) attempts to save her teammates from a dino incident in ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’
Gareth took the Alien approach to Rebirth, referencing that classic Hollywood story of how Ridley Scott didn’t write the character of Ripley specifically as a woman before casting Sigourney Weaver. Based on a script by original Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp, Edwards didn’t gender Zora at first. “It’s hard to think of someone better than Scarlett,” the filmmaker comments. “Now having worked with her, it’s really clear why she’s had the career she’s had, and she’s never been out of a limelight, as well as being an excellent actress.”
Johansson’s Zora Bennett is contracted to infiltrate a biosphere close to the equator packed with dinosaurs and extract DNA from the three biggest creatures of land, sea, and sky for a pharmaceutical company. She’s joined by Mahershala Ali as Duncan and Jonathan Bailey as Dr. Loomis, but, of course, the mission goes sideways when they are forced to rescue the Delgados, a family on vacation, from a dinosaur attack.
“Zora has had a long career in the military and in private security,” Johansson explains over email. “She is someone who has dedicated her life to service and to helping people. She has experienced a lot of loss, yet she maintains a lot of positivity and humor, even when things are hard. I wanted her to have a lot of sparkle. She is someone everyone wants to hang out with. She is a good-hearted person and a loyal friend. Of course, David gave her a lot of gusto in his amazing writing. I just added my part to bring her to life.”
Jasin Boland/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment
Isabella Delgado (Audrina Miranda), Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), Teresa Delgado (Luna Blaise), and Xavier Dobbs (David Iacono) in ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’
Johansson also helped shape her character’s dynamic with Duncan and Henry. With an onscreen trio, when two are men and one is a woman, the pattern we often see is the romantic triangle. “She was super keen that that’s not what we do whatsoever,” Edwards says. “That kind of infected all the little decisions, and it just became a different kind of movie.”
The version of Jurassic World Rebirth that exists now — even as Edwards still has a ways to go to finalize the edit — is closer in spirit to Jaws. Johansson’s Zora is the Brody (Roy Scheider’s character), hunting for a prehistoric creature with Henry as the Hooper figure and Duncan filling the Quint void.
In taking the directing job, Edwards also became aware of the audience’s criticisms of Bryce Dallas Howard’s wardrobe in 2015’s Jurassic World; while Chris Pratt’s Owen Grady led a fleet of raptors on a motorcycle, Howard’s Claire Dearing was forced to run through the jungles of Isla Nublar in heels. “I got made aware of that as you get made aware of all sorts of things when you’re making a Jurassic film,” he says. “But no, I wasn’t that aware of it, actually, going into it.”
Jasin Boland/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment
Xavier Dobbs (David Iacono), Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), and Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey)
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This wouldn’t have been Zora’s fate anyway. Johansson consulted on the costume, which became more bespoke to avoid the more masculine shape of “the straight-off-the-shelf military equipment,” Edwards continues. “A lot of the effort went into how to make it feel like a soldier in the movie, but in a way that still has some femininity to it.”
The fate of any future Jurassic films beyond Rebirth might as well be locked away on some dino-infested island, but it’s fair to say Johansson now continues in the tradition of Sam Neill and Pratt in leading the charge for this new era. A…rebirth, if you will.
“Scarlett’s character probably does share a little bit with Sam Neill in terms of the adventure side,” Edwards remarks. “She’s got this backstory. I don’t want to ruin it for people, but I was half waiting for the studio to cut these scenes out. There were these very emotional, serious scenes between her and Mahershala in the movie that you don’t necessarily expect. There’s quite emotional stuff in the setting up with these characters. The hope is that you care about them without the dinosaurs.”
Jurassic World Rebirth hits theaters on July 2.
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