Yesterday, Colin Trevorrow took to Twitter to announce that a new Jurassic World short film, Battle at Big Rock, is premiering on FX this weekend. It couldn’t have been easy to produce even a truncated entry in the ever-popular Jurassic Park franchise in secret. But against all odds, they managed to pull it off. Now, Trevorrow has explained to Collider how the short came to be and what fans can expect when it airs on Sunday.
According to Trevorrow, Battle at Big Rock picks up one year after Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Clocking in at eight minutes, it shows a family venturing into California’s Big Rock National Park for a camping trip. Unfortunately for the family, their camp is only a few miles away from where the dinosaurs escaped at the end of Fallen Kingdom. Trevorrow claims that the family’s encounter with the prehistoric beasts will mark “the first major confrontation between dinosaurs and humans” Aside from the events of the previous films, OF COURSE.
“Universal asked if I’d be interested in making a short film and I didn’t give them any time to reconsider,” said Trevorrow. “I wrote it with Emily Carmichael, who is co-writing Jurassic World 3. It felt like a first step into a larger world after the last film. You have these animals loose in an unfamiliar environment, they’re disoriented, struggling to adapt. The first people they run into are bound to be camping. I wanted to see that.”
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Trevorrow filmed Battle at Big Rock over five days in Ireland last winter. Because it’s a short, they didn’t have the expansive budget of theatrical installments. Still, they were able to afford a “giant animatronic dinosaur,” which suggests that the film goes back to the series’ roots of using practical effects. Trevorrow revealed that the film features two new dinosaur species making their franchise debut: the Nasutoceratops and the Allosaurus. He also outlined why it was important to tell this story before Jurassic World 3 bows in 2021.
“The world is bigger than just the characters we’ve been following in the films,” Trevorrow said. “We’ve finally taken the story off Isla Nublar, we wanted to show a glimpse of that new reality. If this really happened, you’d see a series of random disconnected incidents that would create a pattern of chaos. I wanted to see one of those incidents.”
[Jurassic World 3] is the movie I’ve been wanting to make since we started,” continued Trevorrow. “It’s a celebration of everything we love about the franchise and I’m thrilled to be a part of it. You’ll hear more about it soon.”
Battle at Big Rock airs September 15 on FX after a special presentation of Jurassic World. It will be available to watch online immediately afterwards.
Are you excited to see what Trevorrow’s crew came up with? Would you like to see more Jurassic World shorts? Let us know in the comment section below!
