Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp has revealed that he originally attempted to cut Jeff Goldblum’s role of Dr Ian Malcolm from the movie’s script. Based on Michael Crichton’s best-selling novel, Goldblum’s character joined Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) in order to provide an early assessment of the Jurassic Park attraction on the island of Isla Nublar. Thanks to Goldblum’s charismatic performance of the mathematician with rockstar sensibilities, Malcolm quickly became a fan-favorite character that would eventually go on to become one of the most recognized faces of the franchise.
According to Koepp, however, audiences nearly missed out on Goldblum’s iconic performance altogether. Speaking on the Script Apart podcast, the prolific screenwriter explained that his first draft of the Jurassic Park script left Ian Malcolm out altogether as he spent too much time talking about “esoteric scientific concepts”. Director Steven Spielberg would insist the character be worked back in after having seen Goldblum read for the role using Crichton’s original book. Check out his comments below:
My first draft I didn’t have Jeff Goldblum’s character. I turned it in and I told [director] Steven [Spielberg] before I started, ‘That guy’s gotta go. I can’t do it, it’s too hard,’ you know? [Laughs] ‘He’s just talking for pages at a time about esoteric scientific concepts, he’s gotta go.’ So, even as I turned the draft in, Steven said, ‘I have my first note already’ — I don’t think he’d read [the draft] — he said, ‘We’ve gotta have Malcolm. Jeff Goldblum came in and just read some passages from the book and [the part] was made for him. We gotta figure it out.’
How Ian Malcolm Became The Face Of The Jurassic Park Franchise
Depicted as a mathematician who specializes in chaos theory, Goldblum’s Dr Ian Malcolm seemed like an odd choice to appraise Jurassic Park’s operations on behalf of InGen’s insurance company. Based in part on real-life science historian James Gleick, Malcolm’s character was crafted as a unique blend of scientific brilliance coupled with the self-assured air of a quasi-celebrity. While his character may have seemed out of place on Isla Nublar, Goldblum’s turn as the cynical chaotician would go on to become one of the most celebrated performances of the original 1993 movie.
Despite already boasting a long and impressive onscreen resume prior to being cast in Jurassic Park, the role of Ian Malcolm would further catapult his career into the realm of super-stardom and secure his enduring place as a modern-day sex symbol. Even 30 years after Jurassic Park’s release, many of Goldblum’s lines and scenes continue to serve as constant fodder for internet memes and pop culture references.
While Goldblum would later return to lead the 1997 sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park, as well as appear in the more recent franchise entries Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World: Dominion, his first outing as Ian Malcolm remains his most memorable. So impressive was his participation in the movie that it is almost hard to believe that Koepp tried to cut him from it entirely. Had Jurassic Park’s screenwriter been successful in his bid to eliminate Goldblum’s role, both the 1993 movie and the franchise as a whole would have been all the poorer for it.
Source: Script Apart