KENNEDY I saw [Trevorrow's debut movie] Safety Not Guaranteed when I was looking for who was going to direct [Star Wars:] Episode 7. Then when Frank and Steven were looking for a director, and I had already decided on J.J. [Abrams], I said, "Hey, I know this is going to be off the wall and you're not going to immediately think this young director could do this movie, but I've come to the realization he is the real deal, and he could handle it."
(...)
SPIELBERG I looked at his movie and thought it was really good, but I wasn't convinced until the last scene 'cause that film could have gone two ways. When this [character] who I thought was certifiably insane actually invented something that could travel through time, that crystallized the choice that it had to be Colin to do Jurassic World.
I saw an earlier version of that film in which the time machine didn't work.
MARSHALL Well [for that version], he didn't have the money to do the effect.
SPIELBERG Had that machine not worked, Colin would not have directed Jurassic World. Colin was a fan of all the Jurassic movies. And he spoke so much like a moviemaker, not like an essayist. I've heard a lot of people talking about movies in very analytical ways, and some of that is impressive and some of that is just analytical. But Colin spoke about the audience and what it felt like to be in the movie theater watching the Jurassic movies. And then he took the other approach of talking about structure and how he would tell the story. And he basically sold himself to me in the room.
