ove over, T. Rex. There's a new dinosaur in town--and he's ready to capture all of the attention in Jurassic Park III, the latest installment of Steven Spielberg's Jurassic saga. The 24,000-pound Spinosaurus plans to tear through movie screens when JPIII opens nationwide this month.
That there would be a third Jurassic film is no surprise, give that the first grossed $357 million, and its sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, brought in $230 million--and those figures are for domestic box office alone.
Science Fiction Weekly talked with producer Kathleen Kennedy, stars Sam Neill and Tea Leoni, and production designer Ed Verreaux to take you behind the scenes on JPIII.
A longtime Steven Spielberg collaborator, Kathleen
Kennedy served as a producer on both Jurassic Park III and
Spielberg's other summer release, A.I.: Artificial
Intelligence. Kennedy also counts The Sixth Sense, The
Lost World: Jurassic Park, Empire of the Sun and Hook
among her impressive roster of producing credits.
Kathleen Kennedy, what was the challenge in coming up with a story without having a Jurassic novel to rely on?
Kennedy: Well, I always say that one of the issues with Jurassic Park is that it basically takes place in a very finite area. And although in the second movie we have dinosaurs get off the island, basically the dinosaurs exist on two islands. So really it was a process of trying to determine how we could create a compelling, interesting story that was essentially taking place within the same environment--and still make it feel fresh and original.
After criticisms of earlier installments of Jurassic--and indeed, of other recent big effects films--how did you balance the role of the human characters with that of the digital effects, also known as the character dinosaurs?
Kennedy: There's a tendency to make it seem like it's something that's really easy to do, because there's a tendency to pass off big effects movies as not being character-driven. But I really do believe that oftentimes they only really work if they are character-driven. Finding that balance is extremely difficult.
What did you learn from doing the first two films?
Kennedy: I think that there is a comfort level in understanding what is possible. In the first Jurassic, we had never worked with computer graphics. By the second Jurassic, we had--I would never say perfected, because I think there's a long journey still to go in terms of where computer animation and digital filmmaking is still headed--but we arrived at a place with the dinosaurs where we felt we had a pretty good understanding of what was required to combine dinosaurs into a scene and make it look as real and organic as possible. And we have almost all of the same people involved in creating this movie as we did on the first and second movies, so there was a real comfort level there, in the fact that we had done this to some extent before, and we weren't having to invent everything along the away. It's sort of like having your second kid--it's a lot easier [laughs].
Tea Leoni, last seen on screen in the fantasy film The Family Man, had no problems adjusting to her larger-than-life co-stars. After all, she held her own against an incoming comet in 1998's disaster flick, Deep Impact. And, in fact, she looked forward to joining T. Rex on-screen.
Tea Leoni, what are your memories of seeing the original Jurassic Park in 1993?
Leoni: When I saw the first one, I was so envious of Laura Dern. I thought, "Oh man, what fun to be a part of that." I remember seeing that film, and I remember what theater I was in. And I remember watching it and--really--my mouth gaped open watching the screen, thinking, "Wow, that is so cool." And I never thought it would be me one day.
How'd you get the role in JPIII?
Leoni: I got a call from director Joe Johnston. And I am a huge fan of Joe's. I talked with Joe on the phone and he had such an interesting take on it, such a smart enthusiasm. Then he said, '"You know we've got Sam Neill back and Bill Macy on board," and that just about made my decision for me. Because there was no script [at the time].
Could you tell the difference between the dinosaurs?
Leoni: You could see it--there were different shapes to the faces. And some seem to have more smiles. They each had such different looks. You could see the difference between the males and females not just in their physical design but their behavior.
Did having worked with the life-size animatronic dinosaurs throughout the shoot help you have a physical feel for what you were running from when it came time to do the green-screen work?
Leoni: Very smartly, the production seemed to save the green screen for the end of our experience on the film. By that time, our imaginations were well informed. We had to look back at a green screen and see whatever coming at us. You could then paint that picture very easily in your mind. Most of the green screen was really more for backgrounds, though.
What's your impression of the special effects involving your digital and animatronic co-stars?
Leoni: The effects are so good that if we were not to talk about it, it would help the illusion even more. Because, in fact, by talking about the reality of it, we're reminding people that this is make-believe, or that these are puppets, which is, by design, such a soft word for what we are talking about. But even just in talking about it, that would be the only hole poked in this illusion balloon. I'm telling you, are not going to believe how far they've come since the first Jurrasic Park, in what they can do now, not just with the puppets, but with the computer graphics.
Sam Neill reprises the role he originated in the original Jurassic film, playing paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant.
What was it like stepping back into the shoes of a character you've been away from for so long? Has the character aged with the passage of time?
Neill: He's not exactly the same as he was before; he's older and probably a little bit grumpier than he used to be. He finds himself on the island against his will with a lot of people that he wouldn't want have a cup of coffee with, let alone be on somewhere as dangerous as Jurassic Park. Someone has to get them off [the island], if they can get off . That role is really thrust upon him.
What persuaded you that this film would be better?
Neill: I suppose it was the great conviction that I had that this would be better than the previous ones.
And what do you think of how the film progressed from concept to screen?
Neill: It was sort of a dynamic process, but I think they nailed it.
The Jurassic Park features aren't your only genre credits: You've worked on such movies as Event Horizon, Bicentennial Man, Merlin and Possession. What do you enjoy about science-fiction films?
Neill: It just takes you to places you'll never go, but you'd like to. To be taken out of the mundane into the future of some kind is just a trip. I have kind of particular affinity for space. I like science fiction as a job, and fiction as well.
Tell us about your other summer film, The Dish, which involves a true story tied to the early days of space travel.
Neill: It's set in 1969, and it's based on the true story of the Australian radio telescope astronomers who were responsible--at great risk to their lives--for getting back the first pictures of Armstrong and Aldrin walking on the moon. It's a comedy.
Production designer Ed Verreaux worked on the first Jurassic Park movie, as well as such genre films as Mission to Mars and Contact.
Ed Verreaux, how many stages total were involved in the shoot?
Verreaux: Seven, as well as shooting in locations around L.A. We used an old warehouse built in the '20s down in the warehouse district; we revamped all of that for the laboratory, because we were trying to save some money and not build another soundstage. We also went out to an old quarry, and we used a couple of houses in Pasadena to be Washington, D.C.
What has been one of the biggest challenges of doing Jurassic Park III?
Verreaux: It hasn't been so much the design, but [getting] everybody to agree, "Okay, here's what we're going to do"--in spite of the fact that we know there will be some script changes coming up. [It's been knowing] that we have start doing this now, because if we wait any longer, we may not be able to have it ready in time to shoot.
How has that fact that you were involved in the first Jurassic film--and that many in the production crew are repeat-timers--helped you to keep on your tight schedule?
Verreaux: I haven't had to find guys who have to reinvent the wheel. [For] a lot of this stuff, it's like, "We've already done this, we know what this set looks like." The thing is, we did try and make this look different from I and II. Hopefully, we were able to succeed.
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Also in this issue: Night Visions' Dan Angel and Billy Brown
.
