Woolly mammoths may have vanished from the tundra 4,000 years ago, but Sir Peter Jackson says he can already envision—and eventually capture on film—their grand return.
On Wednesday, June 18, the 63-year-old Lord of the Rings director joined Colossal Biosciences founder Ben Lamm onstage at Cannes Lions Debussy. But instead of talking movies or marketing, the spotlight was on de-extinction — with a bold focus on reviving the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and even the dire wolf.
“I grew up imagining all sorts of things—imagining flying cars, imagining a woolly mammoth,” Peter Jackson told the Cannes Lions crowd. “And the phones, social media, and everything else have the danger of deadening imagination. And so I think that this is an opportunity.”
Jackson has been backing Colossal Biosciences since October 2024, when he and longtime partner Fran Walsh invested $10 million into the company. According to Colossal’s founder Ben Lamm, the Oscar-winning director isn’t just a silent investor—he’s hands-on, offering creative feedback, staying involved, and even connecting Lamm with Game of Thrones mastermind George R.R. Martin. “Peter actually wants to be involved,” Lamm said. “It’s not about writing a check and then moving on to the next deal. They’re true partners.”
Lamm also emphasized the importance of getting younger generations onboard, telling the audience that de-extinction needs Gen Z’s attention and engagement to truly take off.
“You have to go where people are, right?” said biotech exec Ben Lamm, referring to Colossal’s decision to launch their Tasmanian Tiger project on Instagram and TikTok — platforms some academics claimed weren’t suitable for serious science. While he admitted the move ruffled feathers in the research world, he didn’t seem too bothered.
“Kids aren’t reading Nature and Science,” Lamm said. “We’re in the attention economy. So if we’re going to reach kids on something important — like climate change, biodiversity loss, or just cool science — you’ve got to go where they are, and you’ve got to speak their language.”
Earlier this year, Colossal made waves with the announcement of three gene-edited wolf pups — Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi — bred using ancient DNA and modern grey wolves. The company hailed them as the first step in their mission to bring back the long-extinct dire wolf.
v“We are an evolutionary force at this point,” said Beth Shapiro, Colossal’s chief science officer, in an April interview with TIME. “We are deciding what the future of these species will be.”
And next on the list? The woolly mammoth. According to the company, they’re “on track for our embryos to be ready for implantation by the end of 2026,” with hopes of welcoming a mammoth calf as soon as 2028.
