New 'Jurassic World 2' Character Has Ties To The Original 'Jurassic Park'

Even though production on Jurassic World 2 is currently at the halfway point, we still know very little about the sequel. Jeff Goldblum surprisingly joined the sequel this week, and the tyrannosaurus rex that injured him and chased him in a Jeep will be back again (hopefully there will be some kind of reunion played for laughs), and there is supposedly a submarine sequence. Beyond that, all we have are some vague details on what the movie will be about. But today we get a little tidbit of information about one of the new cast members.

James Cromwell joined the cast of Jurassic World 2 back in February, though details on his character weren't revealed at the time. We guessed that since the movie has something to do with dinosaur rights that Cromwell's character might be a dinosaur sympathizer since in real life he's a staunch vegan and animal rights activist. Some new Jurassic World 2 character details from Cromwell indicate that we might be right, at least partially.

During an interview on Larry King Now (via CinemaBlend), the discussion briefly turned to James Cromwell's work on the blockbuster sequel. Larry King asked the actor who he was playing in the movie and Cromwell said:

"The character Richard Attenborough played, I'm his partner, Benjamin Lockwood. We developed the technology of being able to clone the genes. And so I'm trying to deal with the blowback from what we have done."

So James Cromwell is playing John Hammond's partner who worked with him on the original gene experiment to clone dinosaurs. John Hammond didn't seem like the kind of guy who needed extra money to fund this ambitious venture, so maybe Benjamin Lockwood was more of a collaborative partner on the science side of things. Or maybe he was responsible for dealing with the red tape of creating the park, which is why he's dealing with the blowback from the cloning of dinosaurs after the events of Jurassic World.

All things considered, if Jurassic World is partially about dinosaur rights, it would make sense if James Cromwell's character was fighting for the dinosaurs to be kept alive instead of destroyed. There would undoubtedly be blowback from the public after the park's major incident in Jurassic World that would have people demanding the animals be killed, and maybe Cromwell's character is doing his best to keep them safe. We'll have to wait and see.

In addition to James Cromwell and the return of Jeff Goldblum, the cast also features Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard back in their respective roles along with franchise newcomers Toby Jones, Rafe Spall, Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, Geraldine Chaplin and Ted Levine. Hopefully, we find out more about the sequel from director J.A. Bayona soon.

Jurassic World 2 will arrive next summer on June 22, 2018.