How Jurassic Park 3’s BTS Problems Killed The Movie

Behind the scenes problems with Jurassic Park III killed the movie’s chances to be as successful as its predecessors. Directed by Joe Johnston, Jurassic Park III was released in summer 2001 and starred Sam Neill, who returned as Dr. Alan Grant, William H. Macy, and Tea Leoni. Jurassic Park III was the only movie in the original Jurassic trilogy not directed by Steven Spielberg and it is the lowest-grossing film in the franchise, which laid dormant for 14 years before Colin Trevorrow soft rebooted the films with Jurassic World.

Jurassic Park III has its fans and, at 92 minutes, it’s the shortest and fastest of the Jurassic movies. In the film, Alan Grant is tricked by Paul Kirby (Macy) and his wife Amanda (Leoni) to take them to Isla Sorna as a guide. Their true goal was to rescue their young son Eric (Trevor Morgan), who was stranded on the island full of dinosaurs weeks prior. The group is attacked by Isla Sorna’s apex predator, the Spinosaurus, which kills the Tyrannosaurus Rex and stalks the humans. Grant and the Kirby family are forced to try to survive on the island, facing a flock to Pteranodons and a pack of Velociraptors, until they are finally rescued by the U.S. military. However, the Pteranodons escaped the island’s Aviary and are seen flying to the mainland at the end of the film.

During interviews when Jurassic Park III was released, Joe Johnston spoke candidly about the film’s many production problems, which included shooting without a finished script. Two prior ideas for Jurassic Park III were scrapped in the months before production began. One idea for the film involved teenagers who become stranded on Isla Sorna (which sounds similar to Netflix’s animated series Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous), but it was tossed out because Johnston felt it read “like a bad episode of Friends”. A second screenplay was developed with a more complicated story involving Alan Grant being stranded on the island while Pteranodons attacked Costa Rica, but that was scrapped five weeks before shooting began for a simpler “rescue mission” idea by David Koepp, who wrote Jurassic Park and The Lost World.

Despite coming up with the final idea for Jurassic Park III, David Koepp had no involvement in the film, which was also the first Jurassic movie without author Michael Crichton’s story and input. Nor was Steven Spielberg present on-set as executive producer. Johnston also broke up Alan Grant and Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) because he didn’t see them as a couple. A final draft of the screenplay was never completed during production and Johnston stated that they “had no document”. They would only shoot the pages they had on the day or as far as a week in advance. Johnston also said the joke on the set was that a completed final screenplay would be the wrap gift for the cast and crew.

Unsurprisingly, Jurassic Park III was a difficult shoot. Johnston admitted that making the film was “a living hell on a daily basis”. The director found shooting without a finished script “nerve-wracking, but it was also a way of freeing up the whole creative process. We could literally decide on the day how we wanted a scene to progress.” William H. Macy was vocal about his displeasure with the production, stating, “Who launched a $100 million ship without a rudder, and who’s getting fired for this?’ But that’s the way it goes… I think someone should be shot, but I’m not in charge.”

While Jurassic Park III lacks the magic of Spielberg’s original, the film does have its fans who enjoy it as a straightforward thrill ride and prefer it to The Lost World. Jurassic World III also permanently altered the franchise by making the Spinosaurus a supervillain dinosaur, a trope that was continued in the Jurassic World movies with the Indominus Rex and the Indoraptor. Still, with its irritating human characters and lack of any sense of wonder in regards to the dinosaurs, it’s no surprise that Jurassic Park IIIessentially killed the franchise until Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World restored its luster.

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