Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Michael Crichton and David Koepp, based on Crichton's 1990 novel. Starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Richard Attenborough, the film is set on the fictional island of Isla Nublar where industrialist John Hammond (Attenborough) and a team of genetic scientists have created a wildlife park of de-extinct dinosaurs. After a catastrophic shutdown of the park's power facilities and security precautions, a small group of visitors struggle to survive and escape the 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 US$1.5 million. 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, and featured numerous changes to the characters. Filming took place in California and Hawaii from August to November 1992. 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 two days later throughout the United States. It was a blockbuster hit and went on to gross over $914 million worldwide in its original theatrical run, surpassing Spielberg's own E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) to become the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of Titanic (1997). The film received critical acclaim, with praise to its special effects, sound design, action sequences, John Williams's score, and Spielberg's direction. Among its numerous accolades, the film won three Oscars (Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Sound, and Best Visual Effects) at the 66th Academy Awards. 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.
Since its release, many film critics and industry professionals have regarded Jurassic Park as one of the greatest films ever made. Its groundbreaking use of computer-generated imagery is widely seen as a turning point that shaped the visual effects techniques used in modern cinema. In 2018, the Library of Congress selected Jurassic Park for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film spawned a multimedia franchise that includes six sequels, video games, theme park attractions, comic books, and various merchandise.
Plot
Industrialist John Hammond has created Jurassic Park, an animal theme park featuring de-extinct dinosaurs, on the tropical island Isla Nublar, off the coast of Costa Rica. After a Velociraptor kills a dinosaur handler, the park's investors, represented by lawyer Donald Gennaro, threaten to pull funding unless experts certify the island's safety. Gennaro invites the chaotician Ian Malcolm, while Hammond invites the paleontologist Alan Grant and the paleobotanist Ellie Sattler. Upon arrival, the group is shocked to see living Brachiosaurus and Parasaurolophus. 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 and other animals was used to fill in gaps in the dinosaurs' genome. To prevent the dinosaurs from breeding, they are all made female by chromosome manipulation.
The group witnesses the hatching of a baby Velociraptor and visits the raptor enclosure. During lunch, they debate the ethics of cloning and of the park in general. 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 park tour in two self-driving electric vehicles, while Hammond observes them from the control room. Most of the dinosaurs fail to appear, and Sattler stays behind to study 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 vehicles.
Jurassic Park's disgruntled computer programmer, Dennis Nedry, was previously bribed to steal frozen dinosaur embryos by Lewis Dodgson, a man working for Hammond's corporate rival. To access the embryo storage room, Nedry deactivates the park's security system, cutting power to the tour vehicles. Most of the park's electric fences have been deactivated, which allows a Tyrannosaurus rex to escape and attack the touring group. The Tyrannosaurus devours Gennaro and injures Malcolm 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, 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, Lex and Tim take shelter in a tree and encounter a Brachiosaurus herd, discovering the broken shells of dinosaur eggs the following morning. Grant concludes that the dinosaurs are breeding, which is possible because of their amphibian DNA—amphibians like West African frogs can change their sex in a single-sex environment.
Unable to decipher Nedry's code to reactivate the security system, Hammond and chief engineer Ray Arnold decide to reboot the park's systems. They shut down the 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 go to the shed, and discover that the shutdown has released the Velociraptors. Sattler turns the power back on before being attacked by a raptor and discovering Arnold's severed arm. While she escapes, Muldoon is killed by another Velociraptor.
Grant, Lex and Tim reach the visitor center. Grant leaves to look for Sattler, leaving Lex and Tim inside. The raptors appear and pursue the children through a kitchen, but they escape and join Grant and Sattler. The group reaches the control room, and Lex restores the park's systems, allowing them to contact Hammond, who radios for a helicopter to take them off the island. The survivors are cornered by the two raptors in the visitor center, but the Tyrannosaurus appears and fights the raptors, allowing the group to flee. Grant and Hammond agree not to endorse the park, and the group leaves the island in the helicopter.
Cast
Production Development
Michael Crichton's 1990 novel Jurassic Park was originally conceived as a screenplay in the 1980s, and went through numerous changes before being published as a book. In the late 1970s, a bidding war began for the film rights to Crichton's then-upcoming novel Congo, which would not be made into a film until 1995. With Jurassic Park, Crichton hoped to avoid another bidding war and the same protracted outcome by offering the film rights at a fixed price of $1.5 million, as he was primarily concerned with ensuring that a film actually be produced; he was less interested in receiving a top offer.
Crichton submitted the Jurassic Park manuscript to his publisher in May 1990. Director Steven Spielberg learned of the novel that month while he was discussing a screenplay with Crichton that would become the television series ER. Spielberg, who had a life-long fascination with dinosaurs and had long admired the work of Ray Harryhausen, expressed interest in Jurassic Park. After reading the galleys, he committed to direct the film adaptation. He liked the novel's sense of adventure and its scientific explanation for dinosaur resurrection, saying it provided "a really credible look at how dinosaurs might someday be brought back alongside modern mankind".
Crichton was represented by agent Michael Ovitz at Creative Artists Agency. Spielberg recalled that "the agency got ahold of it; and they, of course, encouraged a bidding war, even though Michael had kind of promised me the book privately". Major studios bid for the film rights, each with a director in mind. This included Warner Bros. and Tim Burton, Columbia Pictures and Richard Donner, and 20th Century Fox and Joe Dante. Crichton spoke with each director and endorsed Spielberg as the most likely candidate to get the film made, noting it would be "a very difficult picture" and calling Spielberg "arguably the most experienced and most successful director of these kinds of movies". Universal Pictures, also backing Spielberg as director, acquired the rights on May 15, 1990,The John Williams Jurassic Park Collection booklet. La-La Land Records. November 29, 2016. less than a week after they were offered for sale and six months before the novel's publication. The film was announced on May 25, 1990.
James Cameron revealed in 2012 that he had tried to purchase the rights, only to discover that Spielberg had acquired them a few hours prior. Cameron said his version of Jurassic Park would have been "much nastier", comparing it with his film Aliens. He realized he was not the right director for Jurassic Park after seeing the finished product, commending Spielberg for making a film which could be enjoyed by children. Dante also praised it, but disagreed with Spielberg's decision to make Hammond more of a protagonist, a departure from the novel.
Storyboards and sketches were already being produced weeks after the rights were acquired. In order to ensure the scenes would work in 3D space, the storyboards were later expanded by Amblin employee Stefan Dechant into simple animatics made with an Amiga 2000 and the Video Toaster. Because of the island setting and abundance of dinosaurs, Spielberg believed it would be advantageous to hire a production designer as soon as possible, choosing Rick Carter about two years before the start of filming. They both read the galleys and held many meetings to discuss which scenes would work best in the film adaptation.
Spielberg, who, as a child, had been fascinated with dinosaurs and imagined what it would be like to meet one, felt that it was important to channel that childlike sense of wonder for the film. Spielberg said that with Jurassic Park, he "was really just trying to make a good sequel to Jaws, on land". He was also heavily inspired by King Kong, calling it the "high-water mark" for special effects and for imagining "what it would be like to do a King Kong of today". He cited Hatari! as another inspiration, calling it "the high-water mark of man versus the natural in a feature film". Spielberg described Godzilla, King of the Monsters! as the most masterful dinosaur film of his youth, stating that it made him and viewers believe it was really happening. Although he did not set out to make a dinosaur film better than any others, he did want Jurassic Park to be "the most realistic of them all".