Donald Gennaro

Film canon

Donald Gennaro was a lawyer who represented the investors of John Hammond's Jurassic Park. He is described in the script as:

DONALD GENNARO, forty, in a city man's idea of hiking clothes and a hundred dollar haircut...

Gennaro accompanied the endorsement team on a weekend trip to Jurassic Park to inspect the park's viability and security. Having his own reservations, informed Hammond "in 48 hours he'd shut him down"'. In turn Hammond responded "that in 48 hours he'd be accepting his apologies".

After witnessing a real Brachiosaurus and watching a tour show Gennaro changed his views and believed Jurassic Park could make a fortune charging upwards of $2,000 to $10,000 a day. When Hammond states his intention for the park to be open to everyone and not just the super-rich, Gennaro off-handedly suggests having a "coupon day or something".

On the program tour Gennaro rides (like Ed Regis in the novel) in the same car as Hammond's grandkids Lex and Tim Murphy; he seems pretty okay having them there on the tour with him, unlike in the book where he is furious about the idea of having children there. They have two no-shows, one where they're supposed to see a Dilophosaurus but don't, and when they're supposed to see Rexy the T. rex eating a goat, the Tyrannosaurus doesn't appear at all. They also meet a sick female Triceratops.

With a storm coming the group headed back in the cars to the Visitor Center but the power was shut off by Dennis Nedry and the cars stopped in front of the Tyrannosaur Paddock where Gennaro, Lex, and Tim watched in horror as the T. rex ate the goat it was supposed to eat earlier. Gennaro runs out of the car and into a bathroom nearby and sits frightfully on a toilet, leaving Lex and Tim to fend for themselves from the T. rex. Ian Malcolm tried to distract the T. rex but only causes it to charge towards the bathroom. Gennaro starts reciting the "Hail Mary" prayer but quickly gives up and slams the stall door shut. This effort proves futile as the Tyrannosaurus smashes its head through the door and causes the entire structure to collapse around Gennaro. He attempts to stay still, but the rain causes him to rub his eyes, blowing his cover. The Tyrannosaurus then bites down on his upper-body, lifts him off the toilet and violently shakes him around, breaking his bones, tears him apart and eats him. When Muldoon and Ellie arrive at the Tyrannosaurus paddock in an attempt to look for survivors, they find his remains several feet apart.

In a deleted scene of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, 4 years after his death, he is mentioned a few times. Peter Ludlow says that Gennaro's family sued InGen for 36.5 million dollars after his death.

Novels

Donald Gennaro was a lawyer of Cowan, Swain & Ross, a San Francisco Law firm that helped John Hammond found the InGen corporation early in his career. He was sent to Isla Nublar to inspect the safety of Jurassic Park, while his wife, Elizabeth, grew angry that he had to miss his daughter's birthday party.

During the Park Drive he sat in the same car as Dr. Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler and Ian Malcolm. When the group visits the sick Stegosaurus and has to return he stays with Ellie, who wants to investigate the dinosaur further.

After the Tyrannosaurus rex has attacked the cars he joins Robert Muldoon, who plans to save the survivors. He also joins Muldoon when he has to take down the T. rex near the river, and when Muldoon has to protect the Visitor Center against an attack of Velociraptors while buying John Arnold time to restart the main power. When Arnold seemingly fails, Gennaro himself goes of to try and restart the power. When he gets their, he is ambushed by a Velociraptor, whom he fights of before being forced into a truck by it and some Procompsognathus, where he remains until Alan Grant comes to restart the power After the two restart the power, they find Tim and Lex Murphy being chased by more Velociraptors. Gennaro takes them to safety while Grant fights of the raptors. Once Alan kills them, they take Tim to restart the systems before calling a ship that had stowaway juvenile Velociraptors to not land on the port. Gennaro is forced to join Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler in the Velociraptor nest near the end of the novel. Ultimately, he escapes the island with the other survivors.

In the novel The Lost World Gennaro is mentioned of having died of dysentery while on a business trip. This is not to be confused with the InGen Incident; Gennaro died on a separate business trip.

Comics

Jurassic Park: Genesis

In Jurassic Park: Genesis Donald Gennaro is a lawyer who is invited, twice, to visit Jurassic Park. He constantly seems unimpressed with what he is seeing during the production of the Park.

Jurassic Park Movie Adaptation I

While accompanying Dr. Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler and Ian Malcolm on their tour, Donald notes on numerous occasions how the impressions of those seeing the Park (both the doctors and himself) affect the fate of Jurassic Park. Ultimately, when the fences are de-powered and the Tyrannosaurus rex escapes, Gennaro abandons John Hammond’s grandchildren, Tim and Alexis, and cowers in a nearby toilet facility.

Eventually, the T. rex proceeds to eat him after it shatters the facility; ironically, Gennaro had watched this dinosaur being born on his prior visit, and was unimpressed, evoking Hammond to tell him that “someday, this little fellow might surprise you!”

Jurassic Park (SNES)

Gennaro himself doesn't physically appear, but you need his ID card, which is found in the basement of the Nublar Utility Shed.

LEGO Jurassic World

When the Tyrannosaurus gets free, Gennaro hides in the restroom (as in the film) and attempts to construct a wall to protect himself. Tyrannosaurus knocks the bathroom down, and although Gennaro attempts to defend himself with a toilet brush, he is eaten. The Tyrannosaurus briefly opens her mouth, revealing Gennaro, still alive, and he begins cleaning her teeth using the brush. At the end of the portion based on the first film, she develops stomach problems and vomits him up still alive in a comical fashion, whereupon he offers to continue cleaning her teeth for her. Later on the T. Rex spits him out and he joins Robert Muldoon and Dennis Nedry in fleeing from the dinosaurs as Grant, Ellie, Malcolm, Lex, Tim, and Hammond leave the island via helicopter. Later in Jurassic World, it is revealed that he along with Muldoon and Nedry have grown grey beards and taken refuge in an abandoned Jurassic Park Responder in the Visitor Center's garage, appearing briefly after brothers Gray Mitchell and Zach Mitchell get one of the old vehicles running. Martin Ferrero does not reprise his role; some of his lines are re-recorded by another actor.

Jurassic Park song

Donald Gennaro makes a small appearance in "Weird Al" Yankovic's Jurassic Park song's claymation music video. He is reading a newspaper in the bathroom, when the Tyrannosaurus rex appears and eats him (then proceeds to drink a cup of tea and floss). In regards to the dinosaur eating the lawyer, the song includes the line "Well, I suppose that proves they're really not all bad."

College Humor

In 2011, Ferrero reprised the role of Donald Gennaro in a CollegeHumor parody of Jurassic Park.^[1]