Glen Powell may be the next ’80s-style movie star, but the actor admitted to recently turning down one of his childhood dream roles in an iconic franchise: “Jurassic Park.”
Powell told The Hollywood Reporter that he opted to not star in the latest franchise reboot for Universal, tentatively titled “Jurassic City.” Scarlett Johansson is leading the feature, with Jonathan Bailey co-starring. Gareth Edwards is directing and the reboot is slated for a July 2, 2025 release.
“‘Jurassic’ is one of my favorite movies. It’s one of the things I’ve wanted to do my whole life,” Powell said. “I’m not doing that movie because I read the script and I immediately was like, my presence in this movie doesn’t help it. And the script’s great. The movie’s going to fucking kill. It’s not about that. It’s about choosing where you’re going to make an audience happy and where you’re going to make yourself happy.”
Powell also shared that he turned down a “Bourne Identity” revival and decided to not take over the titular Matthew Bourne role originally played by Matt Damon.
Instead of “Jurassic City,” Powell is going for other reimaginings of ’70s and ’80s classics. Powell was announced to star in a “Heaven Can Wait” remake, along with Edgar Wright’s reimagining of “The Running Man” — and he is leading the “Twister” sequel, “Twisters.” And lest we forget that Powell had a breakout role in “Top Gun: Maverick” and also Richard Linklater’s ’70s set feature “Everybody Wants Some!!”
Yet Powell told THR that he doesn’t want to be the next epic ’80s movie star, specifically pointing to the legacy of his “Top Gun: Maverick” co-star Tom Cruise.
“First of all, there will never be another Tom Cruise,” Powell said. “That is a singular career in a singular moment, but also movie stars of the ’80s, ’90s, early 2000s, those will never be re-created.”
Of course, Powell’s “Hit Man” director and co-writer Linklater disagrees.
“I can’t be like, ‘My advice to you is to be born 25 years earlier,’” Linklater said, “but I’ve thought that about Glen. Like, God, you’re in the wrong era.”
Powell recently told IndieWire that he hopes to carry on the cinematic tradition of the 20th century by transcending genre with blockbuster features.
“I grew up on movies of the ’90s, early 2000s, where people were taking swings in a way where movies weren’t so binary, so genre-specific,” Powell said. “I feel like we’ve sort of gotten into a place on the film side where it’s like everybody’s sort of, I guess, maybe in self-protection mode. So it’s like, ‘I got to serve the audience exactly what they want exactly how they want it.’ And I think there were certain movies back then where it’s like it doesn’t have to fit into a certain genre. Why can’t we just entertain audiences, and why can’t we offer up really cool universal themes, and really cool adult themes, and told in a way that’s unexpected, and doesn’t fall into one category or another? And it keeps audiences electrified.”
