Why Every Blockbuster Villain Is a Biotech CEO

Jurassic Park, Gattaca, and Ex Machina personify public fears about living code — not how labs actually work.

By Kimberley Vanessa Cheung · 9 min read · Subscribe to read full story

Main points — free preview

Blockbuster films repeatedly cast biotech founders and genetic engineers as villains — from Jurassic Park's John Hammond lineage to Ex Machina's Nathan and Gattaca's corporate eugenics.
The trope tracks real public anxieties about who controls living code, not accurate portraits of how biotech companies operate or are regulated.
Understanding the pattern matters for science communication: cinematic CEOs shape trust in CRISPR, gene therapy, and synthetic biology as much as FDA briefing documents do.

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