Development
Michael Crichton originally conceived a screenplay around a pterosaur being cloned from fossil DNA. After wrestling with this idea for a while, he came up with Jurassic Park. Steven Spielberg learned of the novel in October 1989 while he and Crichton were discussing a screenplay that would become the TV series ER. Before the book was published, Crichton put up a non-negotiable fee for $1.5 million as well as a substantial percentage of the gross. Warner Bros. and Tim Burton, Sony Columbia Pictures and Richard Donner, and 20th Century Fox and Joe Dante also bid for the rights, Universal further paid Crichton $500,000 to adapt his own novel, but in May 1990, Universal eventually decided on Spielberg making the adaption. Universal desperately needed money to keep their company alive, and partially succeeded with Jurassic Park, as it became a critical and commercial success.
After Jurassic Park was released to home video, Crichton was pressured from many sources for a sequel novel. Crichton declined all offers until Spielberg himself told him that he would be keen to direct a movie adaptation of the sequel, if one were written. Crichton began work almost immediately. After the novel was published in 1995, The Lost World: Jurassic Park began production in September 1996.
Before the production of the second film, Joe Johnston approached Steven Spielberg about directing the project. While Spielberg wanted to direct the first sequel, he agreed that if there was ever a third film, Johnston could direct. Production began on August 30, 2000.
Read more about this topic: Jurassic Park (franchise)
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“I can see ... only one safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen.”
—H.A.L. (Herbert Albert Laurens)
“As a final instance of the force of limitations in the development of concentration, I must mention that beautiful creature, Helen Keller, whom I have known for these many years. I am filled with wonder of her knowledge, acquired because shut out from all distraction. If I could have been deaf, dumb, and blind I also might have arrived at something.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“The young women, what can they not learn, what can they not achieve, with Columbia University annex thrown open to them? In this great outlook for women’s broader intellectual development I see the great sunburst of the future.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)