Jurassic Park III (2001)
In June 1998, Steven Spielberg announced he’d produce but not direct the third Jurassic Park feature. Halfway through The Lost World, Spielberg felt uninspired, as if slavishly cooking from a recipe. He had other movie ideas and too many kids at home to waste time on uninspiring projects. Before he secured a new director, Spielberg asked author Michael Crichton to develop a new story outline for a third film and to write the screenplay.
Crichton had an idea to make a prequel story to Jurassic Park but Spielberg felt audiences wouldn’t accept an entry mostly devoid of dinosaurs. A story taking place in between Jurassic Park and The Lost World could work, showing the eerie experiments by InGen in the laboratories of Isla Sorna and how the dinosaurs broke out to take over the island. Spielberg, though, wanted the cast to include the original characters, not unlikeable InGen scientists. After several fruitless days, Crichton told Spielberg he lacked better ideas, leaving to write his next novel, “Timeline”.
Spielberg still had a few ideas, One had travelers marooned on the Isla Sorna, attacked by deadly dinosaurs. They discover paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (from the first Jurassic Park) is there too, living surreptitiously in a treehouse, a la Robinson Crusoe, studying dinosaurs up close. The finale would hearken back to the ending of Crichton’s first “Jurassic Park” novel, where the island was firebombed, wiping out the dinosaurs. Concept posters were drawn up, including subtitles like “Embryo”, “Breakout”, and “The Extinction”. “Extinction” seemed the best bet For the fourth film, Spielberg could resurrect the dinos with the embryos in the shaving cream cryo-can lost on Isla Nublar, as seen in Jurassic Park.
David Koepp was asked to return to script but he too felt he’d run out of ideas, recommending someone new to offer a fresh approach. That honor went to newcomer Craig Rosenberg. Rosenberg’s take involved three families chartering two planes bound for the Galapagos Islands. The adults rode in one plane and their teenage children in the other. The plane of teens has to make an emergency crash landing on Isla Sorna, leaving them marooned among the deadly dinos. The survivors discover Grant, who helps them survive.
Spielberg had Rosenberg inject leftover ideas from the first two films. The story should feature pteranodons, the flying creatures closely related to dinosaurs, as well as marine reptiles like the kronosaurus, though the latter was deemed better saved for a potential sequel.
In August 1999, Spielberg hired Joe Johnston, a former member of his crew on several films who’d become a director for popular films like Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Jumanji. Johnston originally had pitched Spielberg on letting him direct Jurassic Park II; Spielberg opted to direct it himself but promised Johnston he’d be on the shortlist for the third film. Johnston shot to the top of that list off the strength of October Sky. Spielberg warned Johnston that these movies were exceedingly difficult to make, but Johnston assured him he was ready. Spielberg turned his attention to directing A.I., encouraging Johnston to make this sequel his own.
However, Johnston’s disliked Rosenberg’s completed script. It read like a horny teen slasher premise mixed with corny jokes reminiscent of a bad episode of the TV show, “Friends”. He also found it absurd that Alan Grant would voluntarily live on an island with dinosaurs after what happened in the first film.
As they secured a new writer, producer Kathleen Kennedy encouraged Johnston to join consultant paleontologist Jack Horner on his Montana dig. Horner imparted many things, including his annoyance about the series’ portrayal of T-Rexes as predators rather than scavengers. There were much bigger and meaner carnivorous dinosaurs that would terrify the human characters, such as the clawed, fish-eating Baryonyx. The Baryonyx became the script’s new nemesis until replaced with a similar but larger apex predator, the Spinosaurus. Johnston asked Rosenberg to include a scene of the Spinosaurus battling the T-Rex and becoming the dominant dino of Isla Sorna.
Peter Buchman was hired to revamp the Rosenberg script. Buchman conceived that a pteranodon would grab Grant and fly him back to its nest in Isla Sorna. However, during negotiations with actor Sam Neill, he turned them down feeling this was a terrible idea, forcing a new direction.
In the completed Buchman treatment, the action jumps around much more. A prologue shows wealthy Americans parasailing during a tourist trip near Isla Sorna and mysteriously disappearing. Meanwhile, in Costa Rica, a US State Department agent tracking missing persons discovers the mutilated bodies of victims of vicious animal attacks. Shifting back to the U.S., Alan Grant is at a fossil dig in Utah trying to fund a research substation on Isla Sorna to study velociraptors. At the dig are a wealthy businessman, his female business associate and romantic partner, and his twelve-year-old son. The businessman is willing to pay Grant for a fly-over sight-seeing tour of Isla Sorna, while the government agent arrives to offer Grant additional government funding in exchange for his testimony regarding Isla Sorna to help secure US sovereignty over Site B. Grant agrees to the proposals so long as he doesn’t set foot on the island.
The sight-seeing plane flying into the restricted territory hits something that forces them to crash land, The survivors immediately come face-to-face with the deadly Spinosaurus. The film’s action shifts again to the American agent discovering attacks are spreading throughout Central America. On Isla Sorna, Grant discovers a pteranodon aviary. Human bones reveal that the pteranodons have broken out and have been searching for ways to feed their hungry babies. After the agent independently discovers the source of the attacks, the film ends with a military rescue mission of the humans and the firebombing of Isla Sorna as Grant escapes into the jungle, presumably fated for that Robinson Crusoe existence.
With an improved premise and a fatter paycheck, Sam Neill signed on. He looked forward to fleshing out the character and his unresolved issues after Jurassic Park with deeper nuance, a man jaded and cynical about dinosaurs living in the world today.
Spielberg hired as much of the same crew that worked on the first two films as he could get. However, the “B team” for Stan Winston’s animatronics, Michael Lantieri’s practical effects, and Dennis Muren’s visuals for Industrial Light and Magic would have to suffice, as those A-team were busy working on A.I.
The only known reconstructed Spinosaur had been destroyed during a bombing of Germany during World War II. Winston’s crew had to rely on written descriptions of how it might have appeared using smaller fossil samples that appeared around 1990. Its arms were eight feet long, as was its elongated skull, and its body sixty feet long. Horner provided input on the early drawings for the Spinosaurus, but the crew took some artistic license to make it look scarier. For its behavior, they blended elements of a T.Rex with the side-to-side lumbering of a crocodile. The animatronic Spinosaurus was the largest the studio ever created, weighing twelve tons and measuring 44-feet long, the heaviest design ever by the studio. It was so large that they had to remove a studio wall to get their creation out of the building and onto the set.
Replacing production designer Rick Carter was Ed Verreaux, a former colleague of both Spielberg and Johnston before. Johnston wanted a swampy, decomposed look for the island. He also wanted a brighter look and tone from the very dark The Lost World. For the velociraptors, they changed the look, adding a more elongated mouth, and colored, quill-like scales to the dinosaurs to represent their historical evolution toward birds.
Everything was rushed. Jurassic Park had two years of lead time before principal shooting. The Lost World had about one. Jurassic Park III went into production with no settled script. The technical crew borrowed from prior designs. Few improvements were made because they needed to concentrate on the design of the new dinos. Even more challenging: there were about 400 effects shots, nearly twice as many as the first two films combined.
William H. Macy originally turned down his role due to scheduling conflicts, but Laura Dern, costar of their 2001 film called Focus, threatened to break his arm if he didn’t accept the part regardless of the script. Spielberg postponed the production for a few weeks for Macy to free up. Macy also couldn’t turn down the paycheck claiming he needed it to pay tuition for his newborn baby someday.
Tea Leoni had been contemplating retiring from acting when she landed the Jurassic Park III role. However, she couldn’t say no to Steven Spielberg, the lucrative offer, or working with Neill and Macy. She accepted on one condition: She wanted to perform every stunt required of her male counterparts. She didn’t want her character to be another female in the jungle who needs saving and complains about not having creature comforts. Johnston assured her that her character wouldn’t apply lip gloss on day two.
As production ramped, significant problems with Buchman’s script became evident. Spielberg for David Koepp’s advice. In a lengthy conference call, Koepp said that the side story involving the State Department agent was a hindrance There were too many characters and too many delays between action sequences. He suggested major streamlining, making the son one of the parasailers that mysteriously disappears in the prologue, sparking a rescue mission that results in a crashed plane that includes Grant. Everyone agreed with Koepp’s suggestions. A new script was ordered.
Nobody liked opening the parasailers prologue, even holding a contest to come up with a better opening. No one could. Due to a lack of time and resources, Spielberg removed a major action sequence where characters escape velociraptors on dirt bikes. He put in a placeholder ending he’d storyboarded for The Lost World where pteranodons attacking the rescue helicopters. But the ending had to change. The US military also wouldn’t approve the use of its likeness or its Army training airfield on Oahu because firebombing the decision to firebomb Isla Sorna ignored proper protocol and it didn’t depict the military as good guys. Spielberg nixed the “Extinction” subtitle for no longer being relevant, as the dinos wouldn’t die, and decided on simply Jurassic Park III.
Five weeks from principal shooting, the screenwriting team of Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, uncredited heroes on Universal’s Meet the Parents, was brought in to incorporate Koepp’s suggestions and better define the characters. They hammered out what they could within a four-week deadline, hamstrung by genre movie limitations, inability to change the actors, dinosaur moments, design work, or set-pieces. They concentrated on writing dialogue specifically for the actors’ personas and changed their names and backgrounds to provide better distinction.
One major change was bringing Jurassic Park‘s Ellie Sattler into the story. Laura Dern became their friend after starring in Payne’s 1996 directorial debut, Citizen Ruth, and of Johnston in October Sky. Although only contracted for one day of work, Dern wanted more than a cameo, so the writers made her a big factor in the climax. Initially, Ellie and Alan Grant were going to be in the process of breaking up but remaining friends, but Johnston never thought they would plausible become a romantic couple due to their age life goal differences, further compounded by Dern looking like she hadn’t aged since the first film. Better to show her as having moved on from waiting for Alan to become a family man, now married with children with another man. They opted to keep Ellie from the island because having Grant return already stretched believability, but their reunification made for an audience-pleasing ending in reshoots.
Shooting took place for four weeks in Hawaii, primarily on Oahu, before moving to Hollywood’s Universal Studios. Major parts of Payne/Taylor the script were still unsettled, lacking an ending to build toward. Johnston spun to the actors that the lack of a script gave them artistic freedom, but this was a plot-driven movie that needed to drive toward the next set-piece. Script doctor John August was hired for revisions, but because he worked remotely, he wasn’t in tune with the daily shoot. After struggling for a couple of weeks, Macy and Neill began writing scenes until August was removed, usually giving themselves moments of heroism, in favor of returning to the only screenwriter whose script was previously tossed, Peter Buchman. Buchman arrived in Hawaii to script each day’s shoot, bringing back elements of his script to carry them through to the end.
The finished film begins with a man and a 14-year-old boy paragliding over the heavily restricted island of Isla Sorna, aka Site B, where dinosaurs roam freely, only to have a forced crash landing there. Paul and Amanda Kirby charter a plane for an aerial tour of the island after hiring Dr. Alan Grant, who agrees to lead the tour in exchange for funding research on velociraptor intelligence. Unbeknownst to Grant, the Kirbys land the plane on the island to hunt for their missing son, and unbeknownst to the Kirbys, Grant’s knowledge of the dino island was Isla Nublar, not Sorna, and he’s unhappy getting thrown among the ruthless predators again. Accompanying Grant is his student assistant Billy Brennan, and the Kirbys bring mercenary types. Lots of running from dinosaurs results; anyone with less than two lines of dialogue gets chomped.
Macy grumbled at the role’s physicality plus countless idle hours of waiting for scenes to be set up. Macy expressed his grievances in the press about the disorganized production, constant screenplay changes, faulty equipment, and the bruising stunts, stating that whoever made the decision to launch such an expensive endeavor with no script should be shot. He backtracked later, blaming his bitterness on a particularly arduous day of filming.
An action scene depicting the dinosaurs rolling the plane fuselage had the actors tumbling inside as if in a clothes dryer. They all choreographed where they were going to roll and what they would grab so they weren’t falling into each other, though Macy claims the male actors didn’t mind falling on Tea Leoni, who he was smitten by. He regrets that he and Leoni weren’t given a love scene.
Alessandro Nivola, playing graduate student Billy Brennan, felt his role was ill-defined, supposedly brilliant yet asked to do some very dumb things. Johnston gave Nivola latitude to better round his character. Nivola was scripted to die getting picked apart by pteranodons in the aviary but thought his death might sour the experience for younger viewers, Hea regretted the decision somewhat when he learned he was contractually obligated for Jurassic Park 4. He found the shoot monotonous, claiming that if it weren’t for Sam Neill entertaining them with his ukulele playing Beach Boys songs, he would have gone insane.
In contrast, Leoni loved her role, begging Johnston not to kill her character, hoping she could return for Jurassic Park IV, perhaps as Alan Grant’s lover. The running and jumping helped her take off her baby weight, though her weight loss does result in some minor continuity issues. Macy asked her why she was sticking her chest out at certain moments; she responded that her breasts weren’t going to be that big again and she wanted them captured on film.
Due to being so busy on A.I., Spielberg didn’t visit the Hawaii shoot but dropped by the Universal lot occasionally. Spielberg commented on the huge animatronics setups, joking to Johnston, “Boy, I’m glad I don’t have to do this.” Johnston remarked that he’s never cussed so much on a movie set. At his most frustrated, Johnston toward the Hawaiian shore, wishing he could dive into the ocean and swim back home rather than remain at the helm of a $100-million production without an overall game plan. He expressed to others how he wished to hang himself or blow his brains out. He even called his agent once, beseeching him to find a way to get him out of the picture, even if it meant the end of his career.
After the rough cut was assembled, Spielberg was dissatisfied with how it ended, asking for more money for additional shooting in Hawaii. For the score, John Williams was busy composing the score for A.I., but recommended Don Davis, just coming off of The Matrix. Spielberg asked Davis to respect what Williams’ did in the first two films, so he balanced between well-known Williams cues mixed with his own, which emphasized more horns.
Despite its troubled production and lackluster reviews, the film was financially successful, taking $181 million in the US and $368 million worldwide, off of a budget of $93 million. It was highly profitable for Spielberg, whose deal gave him 20% of the gross and 50% of the merchandising.
Some speculate the 92-minute run time was due to rampant gutting. Johnston dismissed this, claiming that his first rough cut lasted 98 minutes. He made cuts to tighten the pacing and appease the MPAA, who objected to some gruesomeness, especially the sounds of bones crunching or necks snapping. They joked that at the wrap party, the gift was the finally completed script.
If a great director like Steven Spielberg had run out of gas with this material before The Lost World, it would seem impossible for a lesser director. Even with low expectations, it’s disappointing how quickly the series became sub-par Spielberg wanted to produce the sequels because he disliked what the Jaws series had become without him, yet the results show it makes very little difference when all creative ideas are exhausted. The introduction of flying dinos seem like a weak reason to return.
Without a Crichton book to provide an intelligent backbone to the script, it’s just a no-brain chomp-fest.
Qwipster’s rating: D+
MPAA Rated: PG-13 for intense sci-fi terror and violence
Running time: 92 min.
Cast: Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Tea Leoni, Alessandro Nivola, Trevor Morgan
Director: Joe Johnston
Screenplay: Peter Buchman, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor