The Surviving Jurassic Park Character You Never Knew Was Supposed To Die
Sitting as the 10th highest-grossing film franchise of all time (via CNBC), the "Jurassic Park" films and "Jurassic World" sequels have been gracing the silver screen for nearly 30 years. The series has made almost $5 billion in total since that time, and they're about to make even more with the release of "Jurassic World: Dominion" coming out next summer. The movies were famously adapted from the books written by author and filmmaker Michael Crichton, with the first premiering in 1993. Fans were immediately amazed by the incredible visual effects used to create the dinosaurs, though they also fell in love with the main cast of characters, including Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), and of course, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough).
All of these characters, including Hammond's grandchildren Lex Murphy (Ariana Richards) and Tim Murphy (Joseph Mazzello), surprisingly survive the events of the first film. As we have seen from all five of the "Jurassic Park" and "Jurassic World" movies, this is a pretty incredible feat when being attacked by anything from a T-Rex to a velociraptor, and especially a mutated combination of both, courtesy of InGen. However, all of the characters weren't always supposed to survive the first film together — one major character, in particular, was supposed to die at the end.
Ian Malcolm was supposed to die at the end of Jurassic Park
Jeff Goldblum's portrayal of mathematician and chaos theory specialist Dr. Ian Malcolm is incredibly well-received amongst fans, along with his acting, in general, being praised by director Steven Spielberg himself (via GQ). Malcolm then became the lead character in "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" as opposed to Alan Grant when Spielberg was developing the sequel, even though it didn't quite work out, according to the iconic director (via The New York Times). So far, Dr. Malcolm has continued to escape death by dinosaur and is set to return alongside Grant and Sattler in "Jurassic World: Dominion." However, as opposed to how it turned out on the big screen, Malcolm actually died by Tyrannosaurus Rex at the end of the first "Jurassic Park" novel.
Per his official website, Crichton actually rewrote the first "Jurassic Park" film to ensure Malcolm's survival because he "needed him" to comment on why things would go wrong. The character survived thanks to incredible Costa Rican surgeons who managed to attend to his wounds. Malcolm even notes that reports of his death were "greatly exaggerated." From that point on, Malcolm has to walk with a cane due to his injury.
It will be interesting to see how Goldblum's Malcolm is able to move around in "Jurassic World: Dominion." With all those original cast members of "Jurassic Park" returning, they'll have to figure out some way to quickly avoid getting eaten, given that they aren't as limber as they used to be. "Jurassic World: Dominion" hits theaters on June 10, 2022.