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:
“The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our distinctiveness.”
—Gail Sheehy (20th century)
“Theories of child development and guidelines for parents are not cast in stone. They are constantly changing and adapting to new information and new pressures. There is no “right” way, just as there are no magic incantations that will always painlessly resolve a child’s problems.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“I could not undertake to form a nucleus of an institution for the development of infant minds, where none already existed. It would be too cruel.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)