Jurassic World 3: Did Chris Pratt Just Confirm More Original Jurassic Park Actors Returning?

Production on the new Jurassic World movie is scheduled to begin very soon and the hype has been high since 2018's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom changed that status quo in a major way for its follow-up. Fans of the franchise are especially excited for the movie since it will see the return of the main trio of characters from 1993's Jurassic Park stars Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum all returning as their respective character, Ellie Sattler, Alan Grant, and Ian Malcolm. It's also expected that BD Wong will be back as Dr. Henry Wu, but are there even more characters coming back from the first movie?

Speaking in a new interview, series star Chris Pratt seems to hint at more reprisals from the film, saying that "everybody" from the original film is returning, comparing the new movie to Avengers: Endgame for the "Jurassic" franchise with the way it brings everything full circle.

"This feels like (the end). It's got everybody," Pratt told Ellen. "It's got pretty much everybody in it, maybe I just blew it but I don't care. I know that like all the cast from the original Jurassic Park is coming back and so it's going to feel very much like how Endgame brought everything together at Marvel."

Naturally, not "everybody" can return for Jurassic World 3 from the original movie, and Pratt could just be talking about the previously mentioned trio. Of the characters that survived the original movie and played a major part though, only the late Richard Attenborough's John Hammond and his two grandchildren Tim (Joseph Mazzello) and Lex (Ariana Richards) remain. All three of them returned for The Lost World: Jurassic Park, but haven't appeared in the series since with Hammond confirmed deceased in the canon of the franchise.

Mazzello has remained an actor since the first Jurassic film, recently appearing in 2018's Bohemian Rhapsody; while Richards has primarily worked as an artist in the years since. ET previously reported that the pair were open to the idea of returning but that there were no plans for them to return. That report came in September of last year and it remains to be seen if plans have changed since then.

Due to the return of the characters that are coming back for the film, director Colin Trevorrow says he considers the new movie the third part in the "Jurassic World" series but that it is also absolutely Jurassic Park 6.

"We'd have had to come up with a reason why Ellie, Malcolm, and Grant all went to the theme park on the exact same day it broke down – again," Trevorrow previously confirmed to Empire. "The next film allows the legacy characters to be a part of the story in an organic way. Emily Carmichael and I call it 'Jurassic Park VI', because it is."

The filmmaker went on to detail the difficulty of blending the new roster of characters with the legacy figures.

"You start asking the most basic questions: who are these people now? What do they make of the new world they're living in, and how do they feel about being part of its history?" Trevorrow detailed. "Ultimately it will be in collaboration with the actors. They know and love these characters. We'll do it together."

Jurassic World 3 is currently scheduled to premiere on June 11, 2021.