Director Joe Johnston chose to break-up Grant and Sattler, believing that Dern looked too young to be in such a relationship; Neill is 20 years older than her.

Neill was dissatisfied with his performance in the first film, which factored into his return for Jurassic Park III, marking the first time he reprised one of his roles.

Before the events of the novel, Grant was approached by Donald Gennaro, chief counsel for InGen, to provide information on the requirements for the care of infant dinosaurs, claiming it to be for a museum exhibit.

Grant and Sattler agree to Hammond's invitation to tour the park, finding it difficult to turn down the request from a major financial donor.

Grant does not appear in Michael Crichton's sequel novel, The Lost World,[1] but he is mentioned several times, including an instance stating that he is lecturing in Paris.

In Jurassic Park III, Grant and Sattler[b] are shown to have ended their relationship some time after the first film, although they remain close friends.

Grant learns that the Kirbys are a divorced middle-class couple searching for their 12-year-old son, Eric, who went missing eight weeks earlier while parasailing near the island.

[c] This forces Alan to turn them as tourist attractions to stay afloat and to promote the importance of paleontology is to learn what life was like before humans became dominant species.

Now working as a soil scientist, she launches an investigation when giant locusts emerge and begin rapidly consuming crops, threatening the world's food supply.

[12] For the 1993 film adaptation, Grant's introverted personality and dislike of children were implemented because director Steven Spielberg wanted to "provide a source of dramatic tension that did not exist in the novel".

[16] The role was also offered to William Hurt, but he declined it before reading the script,[17] with Spielberg again saying that "it didn't sound like the kind of movie he would be interested in making at this time in his life".

[24] Reviews had been critical of the characters in the first film,[25] and Neill believed that his performance could have been better,[26][27] saying, "I was so over-awed by Spielberg; I think I didn't quite look after my guy [Grant] as well as I might have".

[1] Jurassic Park III director Joe Johnston described Grant as a more cynical person, considering the character's experience in the first film.

Of the two Jurassic Park films that Neill had appeared in, his favorite scene was in the latter, when Grant bonds with Eric Kirby and talks about his dinosaur books.

[39] Colin Trevorrow, the film's director and co-writer, did not want to feature Grant or other original characters without a compelling reason to involve them in the story.

[44] It was also announced in 2019 that Neill, Dern, and Malcolm actor Jeff Goldblum would return in Jurassic World Dominion,[45] which released three years later.

[53] Neill explained that Grant's love for Sattler is what motivates him to get involved in the film's storyline: "He's missed her all these years, and the opportunity to spend time with Ellie Sattler…that's what really keeps Alan going.

[59] Neill did not view Grant as an action hero, instead calling him an ordinary person thrown into extraordinary situations throughout the film series.

[61] Reviewing the first film, Adam Mars-Jones of The Independent wrote that Grant's mistrust of technology is "the sort of quirk that a computer might come up with in a doomed attempt to give a flat character a glimmer of dimensionality".

[62] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times also criticized the film, writing that "the sole point of all the carnage appears to be to increase Dr. Grant's appreciation for young people, turning him from a gruff curmudgeon into someone who has the makings of a considerate parent".

[63] Peter Travers, writing for Rolling Stone, considered Neill a skilled actor but felt that he lacked the "star presence" needed to portray Grant.

[65] Anthony Quinn of The Independent called Jurassic Park III a "hack work carried out with precision and performed with a heart", stating that Neill's "anchoring presence is always reassuring".

[66] Derek Elley of Variety wrote that Grant in the third film "is largely reduced to looking worried and uttering apocalyptic warnings".

[67] Jeff Vice of Deseret News found that Neill "manages to make us care about his life-or-death battle, despite his part being underwritten".

[68] William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote that Neill "is something like a movie star, and he provides a sage, comfortable, sympathetic human focus to all the mayhem".

[69] Mashable's Kristy Puchko, in her review of Jurassic World Dominion, wrote that Grant is treated "like a loser who never made a life for himself out of the excavation pits".

[70] Zoe Jordan of Screen Rant wrote that Dominion makes "the barest of efforts" to show character development in Grant.

[71] Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com wrote that Neill "seems embarrassed to be onscreen, or at least confused as to what he's doing in the story", further stating that the film does not justify his involvement "other than that he's from the earlier movies and needed to be here for nostalgia-marketing reasons".

[73] Writing for Observer, Oliver Jones stated that Neill "spends much of this movie looking like a weekend warrior searching for the right aisle at Home Depot".

[79] MovieWeb's Michael Heiskell ranked the original film as Neill's best performance,[88] and wrote that Grant's bravery throughout the series "is what makes him such an interesting character and a fan favorite".