Today, it’s hard to imagine the saga of Jurassic Park without Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum). In the original Michael Crichton novel, Malcolm was a reasonably entertaining character who mostly functioned as a mouthpiece for Crichton’s larger views on the world, man’s obsession with technology, and other problems with modern society. In the hands of director Steven Spielberg, screenwriter David Koepp, and Goldblum, though, Malcolm became so much more than that. He took on a spry, transfixing life fully removed from whoever he was in the film’s source material.
Videos by ComicBook.com
It’s no wonder he became such a fan-favorite character given that Malcolm did everything in Jurassic Park from delivering iconic lines about how “you didn’t stop think if you should” to that unforgettable moment where’s lying on his side with his sweaty chest exposed. It’s also a no-brainer that the Jurassic Park sequels kept finding ways to bring Malcolm back into contact with dinosaurs through installments like The Lost World: Jurassic Park or two of the Jurassic World features. Given these realities, it’s staggering to remember that, at one point in time, Malcolm was almost cut from Jurassic Park.
Why Was Malcolm Almost Cut From Jurassic Park?
As chronicled in books like Don Shay’s The Making of Jurassic Park, initial drafts of this Spielberg blockbuster initially considered deleting Malcolm entirely from the film and just incorporating traits associated with the character into Dr. Alan Grant. Goldblum himself has recounted that Spielberg told him that there was pressure to cut the character even after the filmmaker became enamored with The Fly’s leading man playing Malcolm. Until very late in pre-production, Malcolm’s presence in Jurassic Park was far from a sure thing.
Why was the character so close to the chopping block? Part of it was the natural consolidation that happens whenever a book gets translated to the screen. You can’t bring everything from the page to the silver screen. Inevitably, things get cut, and that can include combining characters to streamline a story’s narrative for film. It’s also possible there may have just been executive nervousness over incorporating a mathematician into the blockbuster. After all, how many escapist box office hits prominently featured somebody so enamored with numbers?
[RELATED – The Original Jurassic Park 4 Script Sounds Nuts (Would It Have Been Better Than Jurassic World?)]
Furthermore, there’s also the likelihood that there may have been hesitancy on how to translate a character so specifically made for the world of literature into a movie. In the Jurassic Park novel, Malcolm really comes alive in the story’s second half when he pontificates on various matters Crichton holds close to his heart. He rambles on for pages and pages, which is fine in a book you can put down at your leisure. It’s another thing in a massive blockbuster that has to run uninterrupted in movie theaters. Koepp has said as much in retrospective interviews, where’s talked about how making Malcolm work as a movie character was his greatest struggle in turning Jurassic Park into a movie.
The Importance of Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park Lore
Given the understandable concerns on how Ian Malcolm could work as a standalone character removed from Crichton’s writing and the novel format, it’s very conceivable Jurassic Park could’ve rampaged into multiplexes without Jeff Goldblum. However, Koepp’s recounting of his struggles writing for Malcolm also noted that Spielberg insisted on keeping the character because he was confident Goldblum could make the guy work. The filmmaking legend turned out to be far more right than he ever could have imagined. Goldblum’s absorbing performance made Malcolm a compelling character audiences couldn’t get enough of. The rest is history.
From there, Goldblum’s effortlessness in conveying an everyman attitude made him a go-to anchor for stories about prehistoric beasties gone chaotic. Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm would be upgraded to protagonist for 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park before coming back in a supporting capacity for two Jurassic World sequels. All the while, Goldblum’s maintained both the character’s distinct style of speaking as well as Malcolm’s wits. This is the man who always knows these volatile dinosaurs can and will go wrong. In that sense, he represents the audience in movie form as much as novel Ian Malcolm embodied Michael Crichton.
These qualities make Ian Malcolm an indispensable addition to the Jurassic Park mythos. It also makes the concept of jettisoning this guy all the more baffling. How could the Jurassic Park crew have ever imagined ditching Ian Malcolm? Then again, the process of turning any novel into a major motion picture is a messy one. Drastic decisions are sometimes considered, including cutting the character that would, in many ways, come to define the Jurassic Park saga.
Jurassic Park is now streaming on Starz.
