With Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous set to return for its third season tomorrow, we were able to watch all ten episodes in advance before sitting down with showrunner Scott Kreamer to get all the details on what is undoubtedly the best season yet, as the six campers face a threat so big we can't even hint at it until next week.
Due to a number of massive spoilers about the second half of the season, this interview has been split into two segments. However, Kreamer did detail the return of the fan-favorite Velociraptor Blue, as well as how involved Jurassic World: Dominion director Colin Trevorrow is with the series and whether or not one of the campers could actually find themselves on the wrong end of a dinosaur's teeth.
Check out the non-spoilery half of our chat below, and be sure to come back next week for the rest as Kreamer goes into detail about the big bad mystery of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous season three!
ROHAN: I'll be honest, when this series was announced, I was very close to writing it off as just another kid's show, but after watching season one, I instantly fell in love because it's just really freaking good. I'm a huge Jurassic Park fan and you guys have done an outstanding job taking us back into this world with genuine thrills and it's just so much fun.
SCOTT: "Thank you, I appreciate you saying that. A bunch of our crew is those same types of fans, so we wanted to get it right and I appreciate you saying that."
ROHAN: Unlike some spinoffs, this show genuinely feels like it's really a part of the Jurassic universe. Could you tell me more about working with Colin Trevorrow and how you collaborate between your show and the film side of things.
SCOTT: "Yeah, well, it’s been really cool. Colin has been very generous with his time. Like, even going back to when we were first starting breaking season one, Colin had told us it was always a bucket list thing for him to be in, I think he said, “a Hollywood writers’ room” and I don’t know if many of us in kids’ animation think of ourselves that way, but it’s been really great.
Colin sat with us many times, whether or not he’s in Los Angeles when he can actually come in and spend a day with us, which is great because Dreamworks gave us better food when Colin comes to visit, so that’s cool, and he’s just been really supportive. He reads every script, looks at every design, when we sit down to kind of broadstroke and break down the seasons, he’s been there and he’s been telling us like one time we were pitching something that went to close to what was going to be happening in another movie, so having him with just knowing what the feature story, where it’s heading, where Dominion is going, when we started this - I’m not sure, but I think he’d just started writing Dominion, so it’s been great and on top of that, getting the blessing of Steven Spielberg and Frank Marshall, it’s really been an amazing experience. "
ROHAN: I do really appreciate how quickly you're able to get new seasons of the show ready, because it feels like we get to go back to Jurassic World every six months or so. What's your production schedule typically look like?
SCOTT: "It takes a long time and a worldwide pandemic did not make that go faster, so we’ve really been - I don’t have the schedule in front of me, but yeah, we’re working as fast as we can, but we still obviously, whether its the visuals or the writing, or the recording, like I said before, we want to get it right, but it’s no lie, it’s a challenging schedule, but so far so good and that’s just a testament to this hardworking crew. "
ROHAN: The cast is so talented and have really done such a great job bringing these characters to life. From a writing and recording standpoint, what kind of challenges do you come across trying to get the proper amount of character development for each character?
SCOTT: "I don’t know if it’s that much different in animation than in a live-action series, but we really wanted - the beginning of every season is we start with the characters, what are they trying to do, what are they trying to overcome. They’ve gotten older, but they’ve now been on an island filled with dinosaurs for five-to-six months, so that’s a tough thing for anyone to deal with. We really love these character and for the good of the show, we wanted to dig deep and see what we come up with and what these kids can achieve and overcome. "
ROHAN: The kids have really proven themselves as capable survivors over the course of these three seasons, but this is still an island full of dinosaurs. How seriously have you really discussed possibly killing one of the main characters?
SCOTT: "I mean I’m not going to say it hasn’t ever come up, I’ll be honest, there was a version of season one where Ben didn’t survive. I’m glad we handled it the way we did, but yeah, I wouldn’t say that I’d ever rule it out, but yeah. The question is, have we ever considered killing one of the kids and the answer is yeah we have. "
ROHAN: As revealed in the trailer, Blue finally makes her Camp Cretaceous debut this season and she has a pretty big role to play. When did you know this was the right time to bring her into these campers' story?
SCOTT: "We wanted to - I’m trying to think, I don’t remember exactly when we decided - we always wanted to see more Blue, but it had to feel organic, where season one is about running for their lives and season two was waiting for rescue and having to deal with the big game hunters. You didn’t want to shoehorn something in a place whether it’s Blue or certain locations on Nublar where it wouldn’t get the due time that it deserves, so we came upon this idea of how to work Blue in this season and I think it worked pretty well. "
ROHAN: This season obviously takes place before the events of Fallen Kingdom, which confirms that only one Tyrannosaurus and one Velociraptor remain on the planet. The films have revealed that the dinosaurs on the island are able to reproduce through parthenogenesis, but even with that, we have yet to see another T-Rex or another Velociraptor.
You've already introduced so many dinosaurs we hadn't seen in the films, but have you discussed bringing more of these fan-favorite legacy dinosaurs back into the mix?
SCOTT: "Yeah, I mean, again, I would say nothing is really off the table. We’re trying to make the show that not only fans want to see, but that we want to see as well. "
Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous season three is out on Netflix tomorrow!