Jurassic World Rebirth is in theaters and doing quite well by the looks of it. This newest entry in the Jurassic canon has mercenary Zora Benett (Scarlett Johansson) enlisted by the head of a pharmaceutical company to go to the test site used to craft mutated dinosaurs. Why do people need mutated dinosaurs? Because the regular dinosaurs have just grown so stale. Along with a few other mercenaries and paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis, Bennett’s goal is to retrieve DNA samples from the three biggest specimens on the island. Too bad for them, there are also those aforementioned mutant dinos to worry about, and worry they should. As is the case with any Jurassic movie, some folks survive and some do not. But, as it turns out, there was initially supposed to be one fewer person heading back to the mainland.
Edwards sat down with Variety and discussed just how the ending was altered. It mostly had to do with Mahershala Ali’s Duncan Kincaid. In Edwards’ words, the outcome for his character “flipped back and forth a couple of times. In the draft I first read, he died, and I thought, ‘That’s great!’
However, that changed when it came time to actually cast Kincaid. Edwards said “We started to pursue Mahershala, and for whatever reason, it felt like, well, if we’re going to get Mahershala, we’ve got to keep him alive, right? But then Mahershala read it, and his only main note was, ‘Can we kill him?’ I agreed, so I joined Team Mahershala and we both pushed to have him killed; the script changed back to him dying.”
But, as those who have seen Rebirth know, Ali’s Duncan walks (or rather sails) away without any fatal toothmarks, just like Johansson’s Zora, Jonathan Bailey’s Dr. Loomis, the Delgado family (Luna Blaise, Audrina Miranda, and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), and Xavier Dobbs (David Iacono). How did it switch back to Kincaid still having a pulse?
According to Edwards, “Whilst we were shooting, the studio said, ‘Look, we haven’t got time to do a pickup shoot or any reshoots. Just to be safe, get some material, just in case we need him to live.’ In my mind, I know how this works; whatever we film will be in the movie, so you’ve got to be careful. I thought, ‘If we can do this, I want it to be the really classy version that I can live with,’ so I started trying to imagine it and to picture some shots. The actors gave this amazing performance for this little section, and I really liked it.”
It’s true, when Zora is yelling for Kincaid, who is sacrificing himself so they can get away, it’s her best acting of the movie (not that we’re slighting her performance throughout the remainder). However, Edwards still sent the cut to Universal where Duncan gets gobbled.
As Edwards phrased it, “I ended up sending the version that had him dying. It went well, but the studio said, ‘Oh, it’s great. But can we just see the version where he lives?’ We hadn’t put it together, so we went back and edited that, and everyone just said, ‘It’s got to be that.’ We did two test screenings, and the reaction to him living, everyone was a lot happier.”
The viewer does wonder a bit how Kincaid survives the charging Distortus Rex, but that’s outweighed by just how likable Ali is as a performer, and how tough it would be for his character to die. Either way, he accomplishes his mission and the others are able to get on the boat and out of the Distortus Rex’s reach.
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