Jurassic World crew reacts to real-world volcanic disasters
HONOLULU (AP) — The lava pours from the ceilings. It explodes from the mountaintop. It creeps, then pours and roars down the mountainside as people frantically try to escape — with dinosaurs chasing after them.
It's the opening act of a major summer blockbuster, but the eruption part is reality for people who live under Hawaii's Kilauea and Guatemala's Fuego volcanoes.
The cast and crew of "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" say it's unfortunate that their summer film revolves around a massively destructive erupting volcano. It's also — obviously — not their fault.
The film shot in Hawaii and the United Kingdom in 2017 premiered in Madrid in May, three weeks after Kilauea started sending lava into neighborhoods. It is set to be released June 22 in the United States.
The first "Jurassic World" ranks among history's biggest box-office hits with $1.7 billion in worldwide ticket sales.
The stars held a media day last week to promote the dinosaur sequel on Oahu, less than 200 miles (161 kilometers) from Hawaii's Big Island where lava from Kilauea has destroyed more than 600 homes since early May. In Guatemala, at least 110 people were killed when a volcano erupted June 3, sending waves of super-heated debris onto villages on its flanks.
The film's writer and producer, Colin Trevorrow, said the timing of the film's release was not something they could have planned for.
"Obviously not something that was anticipated in any way," Trevorrow said at Oahu's Kualoa Ranch, where some of the movie was filmed. "And if anything, I think it just is a reminder of the unrelenting power of planet earth and how just dwarfed we are by that."
Characters in the film go to a tropical island where their man-made dinosaurs face extinction from an erupting volcano.
Actress Bryce Dallas Howard, who plays Clare, the head of the park in the previous film who now sets out to save the animals she once oversaw, said she is uncertain how volcano-affected people might receive the fictional depiction of spewing molten rock that dominates the first part of the film.
"I really don't know," she said. "I mean, it's intense what's happening. And a natural disaster is one of those things that kind of, those moments I think bring everyone together because that's not a political act, you know, it's something where we are all vulnerable to the power of this planet."