'Jurassic World: Dominion' halts filming after positive Covid-19 tests

Production of Jurassic World: Dominion from Universal Pictures has been suspended for two weeks after a few people on the set tested positive for Covid-19, director Colin Trevorrow said on Wednesday.

"All tested negative shortly after, but due to our safety protocols we’re going to pause for two weeks," Trevorrow wrote on Twitter.

Filming on the dinosaur adventure movie resumed in England in July under stringent protocols for the cast and crew to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Production had been halted in mid-March because of the pandemic, which shut down movie and television sets around the world.

Trevorrow did not identify who had tested positive on the movie, whose stars include Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard.

The suspension was the second known stoppage on a major Hollywood movie. Production was shut down for two weeks in early September on the Warner Bros. movie The Batman after a person, reported to be star Robert Pattinson, tested positive for Covid-19.

Universal Pictures, part of Comcast Corp, announced Tuesday that the release date for Jurassic World: Dominion was being pushed back one year to June 2022. Movie studios have been reshuffling dates and postponing film releases as the industry tries to recover from the global shutdown of cinemas in March. 

Reuters