Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction action film[4] directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Gerald R. Molen, and starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Richard Attenborough. It is the first installment in the Jurassic Park franchise, and the first film in the original Jurassic Park trilogy, and is based on Michael Crichton's 1990 novel of the same name, with a screenplay by Crichton and David Koepp. The film is set on the fictional island of Isla Nublar, off Central America's Pacific Coast near Costa Rica, where a wealthy businessman John Hammond (Attenborough), and a team of genetic scientists have created a wildlife park of de-extinct dinosaurs. When industrial sabotage leads to a catastrophic shutdown of the park's power facilities and security precautions, a small group of visitors, including Hammond's grandchildren, struggle to survive and escape the now perilous island.
Before Crichton's novel was published, four studios put in bids for its film rights. With the backing of Universal Pictures, Spielberg acquired the rights for $1.5 million before its publication in 1990. Crichton was hired for an additional $500,000 to adapt the novel for the screen. Koepp wrote the final draft, which left out much of the novel's exposition and violence, while making numerous changes to the characters. Filming took place in California and Hawaii from August to November 1992, and post-production lasted until May 1993, supervised by Spielberg in Poland as he filmed Schindler's List. The dinosaurs were created with groundbreaking computer-generated imagery by Industrial Light & Magic, and with life-sized animatronic dinosaurs built by Stan Winston's team. To showcase the film's sound design, which included a mixture of various animal noises for the dinosaur sounds, Spielberg invested in the creation of DTS, a company specializing in digital surround sound formats. The film was backed by an extensive $65 million marketing campaign, which included licensing deals with over 100 companies.
Jurassic Park premiered on June 9, 1993, at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C., and was released on June 11 in the United States. It was a blockbuster hit and went on to gross over $914 million worldwide in its original theatrical run,[5] surpassing Spielberg's own E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to become the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of Titanic in 1997.[6] It also remains the highest-grossing film directed by Spielberg to date. The film was also a critical success, with praise directed at its special effects, sound design, action sequences, John Williams's score, and Spielberg's direction.[7] The film won over 20 awards, including three Academy Awards for technical achievements in visual effects and sound design. Following its 20th anniversary re-release in 2013, Jurassic Park became the oldest film in history to surpass $1 billion in ticket sales and the 17th overall.
Jurassic Park's pioneering use of computer-generated imagery is considered to have paved the way for the special effects practices of modern cinema. In 2018, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film spawned a multimedia franchise that includes five sequels, two television series, video games, theme park attractions, comic books, and various merchandise.
Industrialist John Hammond has created Jurassic Park, a theme park of cloned dinosaurs, on the tropical island Isla Nublar, located off of the coast of Costa Rica. After a Velociraptor kills a dinosaur handler, the park's investors, represented by lawyer Donald Gennaro, demand a safety certification. Gennaro invites chaotician Ian Malcolm, and Hammond invites paleontologist Alan Grant and paleobotanist Ellie Sattler. Upon arrival, the group is shocked to see a live Brachiosaurus and other dinosaurs. At the park's visitor center, the group learns that the cloning was accomplished by extracting dinosaur DNA from prehistoric mosquitoes preserved in amber. DNA from frogs, among other animals, were used to fill in gaps in the dinosaurs' genome.
To prevent breeding, the dinosaurs were made female by direct chromosome manipulation. The group witnesses the hatching of a baby Velociraptor and visits the raptor enclosure. During lunch, the group debates the ethics of cloning and the park's creation. Malcolm warns of the implications of genetic engineering while Grant and Sattler express uncertainty over the ability of humans and dinosaurs to coexist. Hammond's grandchildren Lex and Tim join the others for a tour of the park, while Hammond oversees them from the control room. Most of the dinosaurs fail to appear and the group encounters a sick Triceratops. The tour is cut short as a tropical storm approaches. The park employees leave for the mainland on a boat, while the visitors return to their railed-electric tour vehicles, except Sattler, who stays behind with the park's veterinarian, Dr. Harding, to study the sick Triceratops.
Jurassic Park's disgruntled lead computer programmer Dennis Nedry was previously bribed by Lewis Dodgson, a man working for Hammond's corporate rival, to steal frozen dinosaur embryos. He deactivates the park's security system to access the embryo storage room and stores them inside a container disguised as a Barbasol shaving cream can.
Nedry's sabotage cuts power to the tour vehicles, stranding them as they near the park's Tyrannosaurus rex paddock. Most of the park's electric fences have also been deactivated, allowing the Tyrannosaurus to escape and attack the group. After the Tyrannosaurus overturns a tour vehicle, it injures Malcolm and devours Gennaro, while Grant, Lex, and Tim escape. On his way to deliver the embryos to the island's docks, Nedry gets lost in the rain, crashes his Jeep Wrangler, and is killed by a venom-spitting Dilophosaurus. Sattler helps the game warden Robert Muldoon search for survivors; they find Malcolm just before the Tyrannosaurus returns and chases them away. Grant, Tim, and Lex take shelter in a treetop and encounter a Brachiosaurus herd. They discover the broken shells of dinosaur eggs the following morning. Grant concludes that the dinosaurs are breeding, which is possible because of amphibian DNA—animals like West African frogs can change their sex in a single-sex environment, enabling the dinosaurs to evolve. The three later encounter a Gallimimus stampede being hunted by the Tyrannosaurus.
Unable to decipher Nedry's code to reactivate the security system, Hammond and chief engineer Ray Arnold decide to reboot the park's systems. The group shuts down the park's power grid and retreat to an emergency bunker, while Arnold heads to a maintenance shed to complete the rebooting process. When Arnold fails to return, Sattler and Muldoon head over, discovering the shutdown has released the Velociraptors. Muldoon distracts two of them while Sattler turns the power back on before being attacked by a third and discovering Arnold's severed arm. Muldoon, simultaneously, is caught off-guard and killed.
Grant, Tim, and Lex reach the visitor center. Grant heads out to look for Sattler, leaving Tim and Lex inside. The raptors appear and pursue Tim and Lex throughout a kitchen, but they escape, locking one in a freezer before joining Grant and Sattler. The group reaches the control room, and Lex restores the park's systems, allowing them to contact Hammond, who calls for help. As they try to leave, they are cornered by the two remaining raptors, but the Tyrannosaurus appears and kills them while the group flees. Hammond arrives in a jeep with Malcolm, and they board a helicopter to leave the island.
Michael Crichton originally conceived a screenplay about a graduate student who recreates a dinosaur. He continued to wrestle with his fascination with dinosaurs and cloning until he began writing the novel Jurassic Park.[8] Before its publication, Steven Spielberg learned of the novel in October 1989, while he was discussing a screenplay with Crichton that would become the television series ER.[9] Spielberg recognized what really fascinated him about Jurassic Park was it was "a really credible look at how dinosaurs might someday be brought back alongside modern mankind", going beyond a simple monster movie.[10]
Before the book was published, Crichton had demanded $1.5 million for the film rights and a substantial percentage of the gross. Warner Bros. and Tim Burton, Columbia Pictures and Richard Donner, and 20th Century Fox and Joe Dante bid for the rights,[9] but Universal Pictures acquired them in May 1990 for Spielberg.[11] James Cameron revealed in 2012 he tried to get the rights only to discover that Spielberg acquired them a few hours prior.[12] After completing Hook, Spielberg wanted to film Schindler's List. Sid Sheinberg, president of Music Corporation of America (Universal's parent company at the time) gave the green light to Schindler's List on the condition Spielberg make Jurassic Park first.[9] He said later by choosing a creature-driven thriller, he wanted to try to make a good sequel to Jaws, on land.[13] Spielberg also cited Godzilla as an inspiration for Jurassic Park, specifically Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956), which he grew up watching.[14] During production, Spielberg described Godzilla as the most masterful of all the dinosaur movies because it made him and viewers believe it was really happening.[15]
To create the dinosaurs, Spielberg thought of hiring Bob Gurr, who designed a giant mechanical King Kong for Universal Studios Hollywood's King Kong Encounter. Upon reflection, he felt life-size dinosaurs would be too expensive and unconvincing. Instead Spielberg sought the best effects supervisors in Hollywood. He brought in Stan Winston to create the animatronic dinosaurs; Phil Tippett (credited as Dinosaur Supervisor) to create go motion dinosaurs for long shots; Michael Lantieri to supervise the on-set effects; and Dennis Muren of Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) to do the digital compositing. Paleontologist Jack Horner supervised the designs,[16] to help fulfill Spielberg's desire to portray the dinosaurs as animals rather than monsters. Certain concepts about dinosaurs, like the theory they evolved into birds and had very little in common with lizards, were followed. This prompted the removal of the raptors' flicking tongues in Tippett's early animatics,[17] as Horner complained it was implausible.[18] Winston's department created fully detailed models of the dinosaurs before molding latex skins, which were fitted over complex robotics. Tippett created stop-motion animatics of the raptors in the kitchen and the Tyrannosaurus attacking the car. Despite go motion's attempts at motion blurs, Spielberg found the end results unsatisfactory for a live-action feature film. Muren told Spielberg he thought the dinosaurs could be built using computer-generated imagery; Spielberg asked him to prove it.[17] ILM animators Mark Dippé and Steve Williams developed a computer-generated walk cycle for the T. rex skeleton and were approved to do more.[19] When Spielberg and Tippett saw an animatic of the T. rex chasing a herd of Gallimimus, Spielberg said, "You're out of a job", to which Tippett replied, "Don't you mean extinct?"[17] Spielberg put this exchange into the script as a conversation between Malcolm and Grant.[20] Although no go motion was used, the production still used Tippett and his animators to supervise dinosaur movement. Tippett acted as a consultant for dinosaur anatomy, and his stop motion animators were retrained as computer animators.[17] The animatics Tippett's team made were also used, along with the storyboards, as a reference for what would be shot during the action sequences.[21] ILM's artists were sent on private tours to the local animal park, so they could study large animals – rhinos, elephants, alligators, and giraffes – up close. They also took mime classes to aid in understanding movements.[22]
Universal paid Crichton a further $500,000 to adapt his own novel,[24] which he had finished by the time Spielberg was filming Hook. Crichton noted that because the book was "fairly long", his script had about 10 to 20 percent of the novel's content; scenes were dropped for budgetary and practical reasons, and the violence was toned down.[25] Malia Scotch Marmo began a script rewrite in October 1991 over a five-month period, merging Ian Malcolm with Alan Grant.[26]
Spielberg wanted another writer to rework the script, so Universal president Casey Silver recommended David Koepp, co-writer of Death Becomes Her.[27] Koepp started afresh from Marmo's draft, and used Spielberg's idea of a cartoon shown to the visitors to remove much of the exposition that fills Crichton's novel.[28] While Koepp tried to avoid excessive character detail "because whenever they started talking about their personal lives, you couldn't care less",[29] he tried to flesh out the characters and make for a more colorful cast, with moments such as Malcolm flirting with Sattler leading to Grant's jealousy.[10] Some characterizations were changed from the novel. Hammond went from a ruthless businessman to a kindly old man, because Spielberg identified with Hammond's obsession with showmanship.[30] He also switched the characters of Tim and Lex; in the book, Tim is 11 and interested in computers, and Lex is only seven or eight and interested in sports. Spielberg did this because he wanted to work with the younger Joseph Mazzello, and it allowed him to introduce the subplot of Lex's adolescent crush on Grant.[31] Koepp changed Grant's relationship with the children, making him hostile to them initially to allow for more character development.[9]
Two scenes from the book were ultimately excised. Spielberg removed the opening sequence with Procompsognathus attacking a young child as he found it too horrific.[32] For budgetary reasons Koepp cut the T. rex chasing Grant and the children down a river before being tranquilized by Muldoon. Both parts were included in film sequels.[28] Spielberg suggested adding the scene where the T. rex pursues a jeep, which at first only had the characters driving away after hearing the dinosaur's footsteps.[33]
William Hurt was initially offered the role of Alan Grant, but turned it down without reading the script.[34] Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss were also considered for the role, but they were deemed too expensive.[35] Harrison Ford and Tim Robbins were also offered the role[36][37] before Sam Neill was cast three or four weeks before filming began. Neill said "it all happened real quick. I hadn't read the book, knew nothing about it, hadn't heard anything about it, and in a matter of weeks I'm working with Spielberg".[38] Janet Hirshenson, the film's casting director, felt Jeff Goldblum was right to play Ian Malcolm after reading the novel. Jim Carrey also auditioned for the role.[39] According to Hirshenson, Carrey "was terrific, too, but I think pretty quickly we all loved the idea of Jeff".[38]
Laura Dern was Spielberg's first choice for the role of Ellie Sattler,[38] but was not the only actress offered the part. Robin Wright and Juliette Binoche turned it down.[40][41] Stacy Haiduk,[42] Gwyneth Paltrow and Helen Hunt auditioned for the role.[43] Spielberg chose to cast Wayne Knight as Dennis Nedry after seeing his performance in Basic Instinct.[44][45]
Ariana Richards, who plays Lex Murphy, said: "I was called into a casting office, and they just wanted me to scream. I heard later on that Steven had watched a few girls on tape that day, and I was the only one who ended up waking his sleeping wife on the couch, and she came running through the hallway to see if the kids were all right".[38] Christina Ricci also auditioned for the role.[46] Joseph Mazzello had screen-tested for a role in Hook, but was deemed too young. Spielberg promised him they would work together on a future film.[38] Richard Attenborough was cast as John Hammond, but was initially hesitant to join the project, which marked his first acting role in 14 years. He eventually signed on to play the role at the insistence of Spielberg, who told him, "I can't see anyone else playing it but you".[47]
Cameron Thor had worked with Spielberg on Hook, and auditioned for the role of Malcolm, before trying out for the role of Dodgson. In the film, Dodgson gives Nedry a container disguised as a can of shaving cream that is used to transport the embryos.