Why The Door Code In Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Means More Than You Think

As a continuation of one of cinema's most iconic — and financially successful — franchises, it should come as no surprise that the Jurassic films are littered with easter eggs. 

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, in particular, features several obvious and more subtle callbacks and pop culture references. There are several in-universe nods, such as the re-appearance of Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville to the more classic overturned '90s Ford Explorer from Jurassic Park. But there's one rather funny — and fleeting — easter egg that Jurassic World gave audiences, in the form of leetspeak. Mostly used on the internet, leet sees letters replaced by numbers that closely resemble their shape. Swapping three for the letter "E" is common and actually happens to be part of the blink-and-you-miss-it Fallen Kingdom nod to fans. 

After the island is (once again) lost to the dinosaurs, all-around villain and dino auctioneer Gunnar Eversoll (Toby Jones) attempts to make his escape from an underground facility on an elevator. During the sequence, Eversoll shoves a woman standing next to the elevator's keypad out of the way. As a result, she's pushed right in front of the elevator's open doors, and upon seeing a bloodthirsty Indoraptor taking a bite out of someone, lets out a blood-curdling scream. It unsurprisingly grabs the dino's attention, who charges the elevator as Eversoll punches in a key sequence, seemingly sealing the doors shut against the Indoraptor. 

Some eagle-eyed fans noticed that the code included four numbers and one symbol: 7337#. Redditor u/Jcollis96 pointed out that when translated into leetspeak, the code spelled out "teeth." It's a general funny dinosaur reference, but also a definite nod to the moment right before Eversoll flees to the elevator. The Indorapter is a threat to the auctioneer only because fellow antagonist and mercenary Ken Wheatley (Ted Levine) opened its cage and attempted to take one of the highly-intelligent dinosaur's teeth before being ripped to shreds by a mouth full of them.  

Sometimes easter eggs can mean multiple things, and that's certainly the case with Eversoll's elevator code. While some immediately saw the throw-away joke of the code's "teeth" reference, others more familiar with Fallen Kingdom director J.A. Bayona's work noticed that it also paid tribute to one of his inspirations (via Syfy Wire). 

If you remove the pound sign, the code is simply 7337 — the name of a 2000 short film from director Sergio G. Sanchez that was eventually adapted into the 2007 feature film The Orphanage. The fantasy horror project followed a young teacher after she arrived at a rural school, abandoned since the Spanish Civil War. With powerhouse and friend Guillermo del Toro producing, Bayona would direct the film and help his friend and the movie's writer Sanchez turn from a short to a feature-length film. after being inspired by its balance of horror and drama. 

"I read the script and was very impressed that the scary sequences were very well-written, but there was a perfect balance between horror and emotion," Bayona told Filmmaker Magazine in 2007. "What we did was create that same kind of story that could be read like a horror story or at the same time like a real drama, and let the audience interpret the story at the end." 

Unsurprisingly, the energy and creative vision the duo brought to The Orphanage are part of what made Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom successful, even it wasn't a universal hit.