Jurassic Park III
07/16/2002 AD released
Jurassic Park III was theatrically released on July 18, 2001. Despite mixed reviews from critics, the film was successful at the box office, grossing $368 million worldwide. Nevertheless, it is the lowest-grossing installment in the series.
After the release of Spielberg's Jurassic Park, Joe Johnston expressed interest in directing a sequel. Although Spielberg returned to direct the first sequel, he gave Johnston permission to direct a possible third film.
Universal Pictures announced a third film in June 1998, with a release scheduled for mid-2000. Craig Rosenberg wrote the first draft of the script, about teenagers becoming marooned on Isla Sorna.
Johnston was announced as director in 1999, and Rosenberg's draft was rejected. A second draft, by Buchman, involved dinosaur attacks in various mainland locations, while a parallel story within the script would involve Alan Grant and others crash-landing on Isla Sorna.
Around five weeks before the start of filming, Johnston and Spielberg rejected the second draft in favor of a simpler story idea suggested by David Koepp, the writer of the previous two films. Payne and Taylor were hired to rewrite the earlier script by Buchman, who made further revisions to their draft.
The script also received uncredited work by John August. Filming lasted five months, and began in Hawaii on August 30, 2000, before moving to California. A final draft of the script was never completed during production, and Johnston considered quitting the project on a few occasions because of uncertainty about how the film would turn out.
As with previous films, Jurassic Park III features a combination of computer-generated and animatronic dinosaurs, created respectively by Industrial Light & Magic and Stan Winston. Unlike the previous films, Jurassic Park III features a Spinosaurus as the main dinosaur antagonist, replacing the Tyrannosaurus rex. The same creature would then make its return in the fourth season of Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous twenty years later.
Lattitude: 34.05° N
Longitude: 118.25° W
Region: North America
Modern Day United States
