It’s been almost a week since the debut of the second season of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, the latest extension to the long-running Jurassic franchise. The Netflix animated series, which follows a ragtag ensemble of teenage kids who have become stranded on Isla Nublar during the events of Jurassic World, has definitely surprised viewers at every turn. That’s especially the case for the series’ second season, which further expands the Camp Cretaceous mythos with a lot of heart, humor, and unexpected plot twists along the way.
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One of the most instrumental figures in Camp Cretaceous is Scott Kreamer, who serves as executive producer and showrunner of the project. Kreamer is no stranger to buzzworthy family-friendly content, co-producing seven years of the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, and also working on series such as Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, Catscratch, and Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain.
In celebration of Camp Cretaceous‘ return, ComicBook.com got a chance to chat with Kreamer about all things tied to Season 2. We talked about the season’s biggest moments, where the series could go next, and the surrealness of being part of the larger Jurassic franchise. Keep scrolling to check it out (as well as an exclusive clip from Season 2), and share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
Major spoilers for Season 2 of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous below! Only look if you want to know!
ComicBook.com: I really loved Season 2. I think that you guys did such a good progression of obviously the cliffhanger from season one while still kind of keeping the spirit of the show alive. I was really curious from a creative standpoint, what it’s like to develop the season that is dealing with such dark themes, but is still clearly such a story about kids and has kind of a kid’s point of view to it.
Scott Kreamer: That’s how we’re trying to approach the entire series, and it is a bit of a balancing act. Just from the get-go, we don’t want to shy away from those things. Look, at its core, this is a show about these kids. Each and every episode, when we’re in the writer’s room, figuring out ‘What are we going to do with this one?’ It always starts from a place of character, and always what we can further learn or illuminate or subvert expectations for the different campers.
Getting into spoilers for the season, I really loved that you guys introduced actual villains for the kids to go up against. It feels like in season one, the conflict is more just the events of Jurassic World happening, whereas this season, it was more the kids directly going against other people. What was it like to kind of introduce villains, and introduce the whole big game hunting aspect as well?
It was fun. Just by the nature of what the show is, that it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to adding new characters. So it was really fun getting Mitch and Tiff and Hap in there. We kind of knew where their endgame was going to end up, and you really want to make people — especially in a kid’s show — when people die, we don’t take that lightly, and we really want to make sure that it feels like they had it coming. And I think that Tiff and Mitch definitely had it coming.
I was curious about the creative decision behind how Ben and Bumpy come back, because it feels like you guys really earned that moment.
We put a lot of love into that one. Both, the writer, Lindsay Kerns, and our story editor, Josie Campbell really got into that. And then on the art side, the director, Eric Elrod, and especially the other executive producer, Eric Hammersley, really rolled up their sleeves and dug deep into that episode.
Even before we started, I knew I wanted to do a survival episode, [as] a departure. Putting as little dialogue in an episode as possible, just really telling a survival story. Ben coming back just lent itself perfectly to that.
Is there a scene in season two that is your favorite?
The Ben and Bumpy and versus Toro fight, I just really, really loved that. Also, the stampede that kind of culminates at the end of the season. That’s tough to do, and our animators just did a stellar job. That’s tough to have that many characters on screen at the same time in a television CG show.
I really love the progression of the characters. Putting Kenji and Yaz together when Yaz is questioning her worth. There’s a lot in this season that I really, really like.
Is there anything you can tease about kind of the trajectory of the show beyond Season 2? It feels like there’s a lot of story that you have left to tell, between the kids still being stuck on the island and the tease at the end of Season 2.
I wish I could tell you more about, if there’s going to be more. You put it exactly how I would’ve put it. We have a lot more story to tell with these characters, and we’ve set up things going back to Season 1 that we definitely want to pay off. So here’s hoping, because when we started, we knew [that] the opening sequence of Fallen Kingdom, where they go in to get the Indominus tube and all that, that takes place six months after Jurassic World falls. We’ve got plenty of time to tell stories before then, and then still keeping with the canon of the Jurassic universe.
When I spoke to Colin about this season, he said something similar, about how the full story of Camp Cretaceous will fit into the larger cannon in a very significant way. What has it been like to have the show be part of this larger franchise, and do its own thing while being able to ebb and flow within this larger canon at the same time?
It’s like a dream come true. Just to get a chance to be a part of this [franchise] that means so much. It means so much to the fans, but it means so much to me and our crew. We all came into this as fans first. It’s been amazing.
And for Colin, who has been so involved — he’s been in our writer’s room many times, he weighs in on a lot of things. When we kind of started this, he was still writing Dominion, so we had some insight into where the franchise is going. There were some times where we weren’t necessarily going in the wrong direction, [but] we kind of were straying too close to where things might be heading. It’s really cool, in the way that figuring out the puzzle of Season 1, of where our kids can be that doesn’t break the canon of the film, but maybe sees different events from a different point of view. It’s really fun, from a writing perspective to figure that stuff, figure it all out.
What has it been like to see the response to Season 1, and the hype going into Season 2?
Oh, amazing. This is so incredibly gratifying. I felt like ‘Okay, this is a quality show. [We] put a lot of heart and a lot of love and a lot of hard work into it,’ but I didn’t know what to expect. You’re part of something that means so much — whether or not it’s Harry Potter, or Jurassic, or Star Wars, you don’t know what to expect.
And believe it or not, the Internet isn’t always a kind place. So for us to be accepted and celebrated by the fans and to have so much love out there, it’s indescribable. You don’t get wins like this that often, and it’s been really great.
What are you most excited to see viewers respond to with Season Two in particular?
When we started this, the dinosaurs were always going to be there, and I said, ‘If we’re really going to hook people in for more than a 90-minute movie, for multiple episodes, we [need] to have a cast where people like them. And more than that, they can relate to them and root for them.’ I really liked a lot of the places — emotionally, and personally, and within the family — that these characters go.
Also, we didn’t get to use the T-Rex in season one. I love the T-Rex, and I’m pretty excited to have Rexy in this season as well.
But there’s a lot of fun to be had. We’re getting to see new dinosaurs, we’re getting to see new parts of the island that haven’t even been seen in the feature or the show. Just seeing everything move forward, there’s a lot of excitement and a lot of heart.
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The first two seasons of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous are now available to stream on Netflix.
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