See The Kids Of Jurassic Park Reunite 30 Years Later
Jurassic Park stars Joe Mazzello and Ariana Richards recently reunited for a photo.
The most recent Jurassic Park movie Jurassic World: Dominion, saw a cast reunion many fans had been waiting for when actors Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, and Sam Neill reprised their roles. Unfortunately, two key characters in the original film didn’t make an appearance. Fortunately for fans, according to a recent Instagram post, Jurassic Park stars Joe Mazzello and Ariana Richards had their own reunion after the premiere of Jurassic Park almost 30 years ago.
The post comes from the Instagram account of Jurassic Park star Ariana Richards. The caption reads: “Guess who I ran into this week?” before the star wrote, “It was incredible to see you again after all these years, Joe (@joe_mazzello)! Thank you so much @amblin @universalpictures for creating this Legacy family so many years ago.”
In the post, Richards tagged Mazzello, the official account for Amblin Entertainment, the film and television production company founded by Steven Spielberg, and Universal Pictures. Although Richards did not say where they were or what event brought them together, there was a photo of Steven Spielberg with a Raiders of the Lost Ark hat on behind them, suggesting some Spielberg-related event.
Although both actors have gone their separate ways since 1993’s Jurassic Park, it seems that the franchise holds a soft spot in both of their memories. At the time of the film’s release, Ariana was 13, and Joe was only nine.
Ariana Richards and Joe Mazello played sister and brother Lex and Tim Murphy in the original Jurassic Park. Richards had been featured in other films such as Angus, The Golden Girls, Empty Nest, and Boy Meets World, but as an adult has primarily focused on her career as an artist. Mazello has roles in the HBO miniseries The Pacific, The Social Network, and in the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.
Jurassic Park has become a staple franchise since its inception in 1993. Directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Michael Crichton, the science fiction film starred Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Richard Attenborough as survivors trying to escape a wildlife park filled with genetically modified, de-extinct dinosaurs. Richards and Mazzello played the grandchildren of Attenborough’s character.
Jurassic Park would become the first installment in the original Jurassic Park trilogy, including 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park and 2001’s Jurassic Park III. The franchise retired from the large screen for 14 years until a revival with 2015’s Jurassic World. It would become the first in a second trilogy of films that starred Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard as the new franchise leads.
The most recent film, 2022’s Jurassic World: Dominion, was very much a full-circle moment for the franchise, as it saw Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum all reprise their roles and return to the franchise to star alongside Pratt and Howard. Although billed as the franchise’s last entry, given the film’s and the franchises’ financial success, it is very likely that there are more entries in the Jurassic Park franchise to come.
Outside of the main trilogies, the Jurassic Park franchise includes the animated series Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, two short films, three novels, numerous video games, a theme park ride, and even an exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History. Some expected the siblings to return in the sequel series of Jurassic Park films, and although that onscreen reunion never came to fruition, it’s endearing to see the two actors reunite after the film’s debut almost 30 years ago. With another entry into the franchise never out of the question, it could be possible that we see the fictional siblings reunite years later.
