Buzz
It’s been almost three decades since Jurassic Park hit theaters, yet Steven Spielberg's groundbreaking film remains just as influential today as it was in 1993. With Jurassic World: Dominion now showing, there's no better moment to revisit this legendary sci-fi masterpiece. Here are 20 intriguing tidbits you might not have known about the movie, which raked in around a billion dollars at the global box office.
1. Spielberg learned about Jurassic Park while working on ER.
While director Steven Spielberg and author Michael Crichton were collaborating on a screenplay that would later evolve into the hit TV series ER, Spielberg inquired about Crichton's upcoming book. The author mentioned Jurassic Park, prompting Spielberg to quickly convince Universal to acquire the film rights in May 1990, even before the book was published. So enthusiastic was he that he began sketching out scenes from the novel, despite the absence of a completed script.
2. Jurassic Park nearly took a backseat to Schindler's List.
Although Spielberg was thrilled about Jurassic Park, he was determined to first direct his passion project—Schindler's List—but MCA/Universal President Sid Scheinberg would only approve Spielberg's Holocaust drama if he agreed to make the dinosaur film first. Both films made their debut in 1993, with Jurassic Park arriving in June, and Schindler's List releasing later that same year.
3. Chip Kidd is the genius behind that unforgettable logo.
Unlike most movies that adopt the book's cover art for their posters, Jurassic Park flipped the script: The famous logo on the film’s poster was based on a drawing by designer Chip Kidd of a T. rex skeleton, which originally appeared on the cover of the novel.
4. A King Kong attraction influenced Spielberg’s initial vision for creating the dinosaurs.
Spielberg’s original vision for bringing dinosaurs to life was heavily influenced by the Universal Studios ‘King Kong Encounter’ ride. Designed by Disney Imagineer Bob Gurr, the Kong animatronic featured a full-size structure with a balloon-like inflatable skin wrapped around a wireframe. However, the idea of creating full-size animatronic dinosaurs for Jurassic Park proved too expensive to execute.
5. Spielberg had to get inventive to bring the dinosaurs to life.
With the idea of life-sized animatronic dinosaurs off the table, Spielberg had to think outside the box. To make his vision of Jurassic Park a reality, he assembled a team of special effects pioneers.
Stan Winston, famous for designing the exoskeleton of The Terminator, and his team were responsible for creating and operating the live-action dinosaur robots. While some, like the T. rex, were full-scale models, many were partial dinosaurs—some just had the head and torso, others only the legs and claws. One notable example is the 7.5-foot-tall Brachiosaurus puppet, which only featured the head and neck.
Michael Lantieri, special effects supervisor on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and the Back to the Future sequels, oversaw the interactive elements during filming. For example, in the climactic scene where a CGI T. rex tosses a CGI raptor into a practical T. rex skeleton, Lantieri ensured the skeleton reacted convincingly to the CGI effects that would be added later.
Phil Tippett, who won an Oscar for his special effects work on Return of the Jedi, used his innovative 'Go-Motion' technique—an evolved version of stop-motion animation that added motion blur to each frame for smoother, more lifelike movement—to bring the dinosaurs to life in wide shots.
Dennis Muren, known for his previous work on the Star Wars films and Spielberg classics like E.T. and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, led the effects team at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) to flawlessly integrate all of the various effects during post-production.
6. Jurassic Park set a new benchmark for CGI.
Spielberg wasn’t fully satisfied with the initial wide shots of the dinosaurs—they lacked the photorealism he envisioned. So Muren and his ILM team, who had already made waves with fully computer-generated characters in films like The Abyss and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, presented Spielberg with an early CGI test featuring Gallimimus skeletons running through a field. Amazed by the realism and fluidity of the movement, Spielberg was still hesitant, unsure if it would withstand close scrutiny. Reluctantly, he asked Muren and ILM to push further. They responded with a test of a fully rendered T. rex walking across a sunlit field. That’s when Spielberg made the call to go all-in with CGI for certain shots.
7. One iconic line from Ian Malcolm was inspired by a member of the effects team.
During a viewing of Muren’s complete CGI test with Spielberg and the effects team, Tippett remarked, 'I think I’m extinct.' Spielberg then worked that comment into the film, with a memorable exchange between Sam Neill’s Alan Grant and Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm. When Grant says, 'I think we're out of a job,' Malcolm responds with, 'Don't you mean extinct?'
Rather than leaving the production and abandoning the animal motion research he’d already done, Tippett stayed on as a consultant, assisting the CGI animators in creating lifelike movements for their digital dinosaurs.
8. To make the dinosaurs feel real, the effects artists had to get into character.
The digital artists filmed themselves mimicking the movements of a Gallimimus herd for reference before animating the stampede scene. This helped them capture more authentic, instinctive behavior. Meanwhile, Stan Winston’s team built raptor suits and got into character themselves based on the video footage.
Altogether, the Jurassic Park CGI dinosaurs appear on-screen for just 6 minutes, while the total dinosaur-related effects shots make up only 14 minutes of the film’s 127-minute runtime.
9. Some major stars were considered for roles in the film.
Casting is crucial: Other actors who were in the running for roles in the film included William Hurt and Harrison Ford for Alan Grant, Christina Ricci as Lex, Sean Connery as John Hammond, and either Robin Wright or Juliette Binoche for Ellie Sattler.
10. Jurassic Park lured Richard Attenborough out of retirement.
Richard Attenborough, who portrayed InGen CEO John Hammond, had been on a 15-year break from acting when Spielberg reached out to him for a role in Jurassic Park. At the time, Attenborough was focused on directing—his film Gandhi won Best Director and Best Picture at the 55th Academy Awards, beating Spielberg’s E.T.—but he agreed to return to acting because, as he put it, Spielberg had “the charm of the devil.”
11. A massive hurricane struck the set during production.
Jurassic Park was filmed on location in 1992 on Kauai Island, Hawaii. During the shoot, Hurricane Iniki—recorded as the most powerful hurricane to ever strike Hawaii—hit the island. Apparently, Richard Attenborough slept through the worst of it. When other cast members asked how he managed that, he simply replied that it was no big deal—after all, he had survived the London Blitz during World War II.
12. Jeff Goldblum liked to read his lines aloud on set.
In 2011, Ariana Richards—who played Lex—shared a funny Jeff Goldblum story with Interview magazine. She recalled sitting in a helicopter between scenes with Joey Mazzello (Tim) and Goldblum, who was holding his script. 'What struck me was that he wasn’t quietly studying his lines like most actors I'd known,' she said. 'He was speed-reading them out loud!' That’s chaos—just like Ian Malcolm would have wanted.
13. Spielberg consulted paleontologists during production.
Renowned paleontologist Jack Horner was brought in during filming to ensure that the dinosaurs’ behaviors were scientifically accurate, while fellow paleontologist Robert T. Bakker provided animators with valuable insights into the physical traits of the dinosaurs.
In the foreword to his 1995 novel Raptor Red, paleontologist Robert T. Bakker praised the animators behind the dinosaurs, saying, 'The artists... wanted the latest info on every species they were reconstructing. They wanted everything to be perfect. They'd been calling me every week for months, double-checking things like the teeth of T. rex and the skin of Triceratops. I sent them dozens of pages of dino-details.' He also mentioned in an interview with Popular Mechanics in 2012 that the dinosaur artists on Jurassic Park were 'better animal morphologists than most tenured professors.'
14. ... but Spielberg didn’t always follow their suggestions.
Despite the careful advice from experts, Spielberg sometimes chose to take creative liberties with the appearance of the dinosaurs. For example, when Bakker provided diagrams of the T. rex teeth, which in reality were banana-shaped, the team decided they didn't like the actual shape. Bakker recalled in an interview with Popular Mechanics that the CGI rex and the animatronic version both had their teeth sharpened for dramatic effect.
One of the most famous examples is Spielberg's version of the Velociraptor, which actually resembles the Deinonychus much more closely. A key reference for Michael Crichton’s book was Gregory Paul’s Predatory Dinosaurs of the World, which classified the Velociraptor as a subspecies of Deinonychus. In reality, Velociraptors weighed less than 50 pounds and had feathers.
However, as luck would have it, a larger species called the Utahraptor was discovered during the production of Jurassic Park. In the foreword of Raptor Red, Bakker recounts a call from Dr. James Kirkland, part of the team that unearthed the Utahraptor:
"Jim!" I shouted. "You just discovered the giant raptor Spielberg invented for his movie." Jim looked at me like I was crazy. He didn't know about the phone call I'd received earlier that day regarding giant raptors. It came from one of the special effects artists working in the Jurassic Park skunkworks. They were anxious about what was to become the movie's star—a raptor species that hadn't been documented in any fossil records. Just before Jim called, I'd heard one artist complain that Spielberg had made up a raptor that didn’t exist. He was looking for solid evidence, fossil data. "Sure, a giant raptor is possible—theoretically. But you don't have any bones." But now, Jim's Utahraptor provided him with bones.
The dinosaur discovered in January 1992 closely matched the size of the big female raptor in Jurassic Park.
15. Only one animatronic dinosaur made it to the Hawaiian set.
Winston’s team relied on highly detailed drawings to craft the animatronic dinosaurs. They started by creating small-scale and full-scale clay models based on the drawings, before building the remote-controlled skeletons that would be hidden beneath the latex skin. A mini-documentary from the Stan Winston School showcases the creation of the T. rex, which, according to the team, was as dangerous as a real dinosaur.
And check out some behind-the-scenes footage of the animatronic dinosaur in action:
According to Entertainment Weekly, only one of Winston’s animatronics was used on location: the sickly Triceratops the characters encounter during their tour. The rest of the robotic dinosaurs, including the T. rex during its attack scene and the raptors in the kitchen sequence, were filmed on sets and soundstages.
16. Creating the T. rex roar required a mix of different animal sounds.
The iconic T. rex roar was said to be a combination of tiger growls, alligator grunts, and baby elephant trumpets. The chilling Dilophosaurus roar, on the other hand, was formed by blending howler monkeys' calls, hawk screeches, rattlesnake hisses, and swan honks.
17. Grant and Lex would likely have been T. rex prey.
While the T. rex could have relied on its sense of smell to hunt, when Jurassic Park was made, it wasn’t confirmed whether the dinosaur's vision worked based on movement. Since some reptiles are known to have this trait, consultant Jack Horner allowed Spielberg to include it in the film. However, more recent studies suggest the T. rex probably had remarkably good vision. Whoops.
18. Robert Muldoon’s weapon of choice was the SPAS-12 shotgun.
Robert Muldoon, the game warden portrayed by Bob Peck, uses a folding-stock version of the Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun to hunt the Velociraptors in the movie. This firearm, which stands for 'Sporting Purpose Automatic Shotgun,' was a dual-mode weapon that could switch between semi-automatic mode (firing 4 rounds per second) and pump-action mode for low-pressure rounds. Produced from 1979 to 2000, it was effective at close range, but it couldn’t save Muldoon from the raptors. Clever girl.
19. One unforgettable scene was inspired by Earth, Wind & Fire.
The famous scene where the water ripples and the mirror shakes in the tour vehicle as the Tyrannosaurus approaches was inspired by Spielberg’s experience listening to Earth, Wind & Fire with the bass cranked up in his car. On set, special effects supervisor Michael Lantieri used a guitar string underneath the cups to create the ripples, while a vibrating motor above the windshield made the mirror tremble.
20. Once filming wrapped, another well-known director took over so Spielberg could focus on Schindler’s List.
Spielberg and his team wrapped filming for Jurassic Park on November 30, 1992, 12 days ahead of schedule. However, he had to quickly shift focus to his next project, Schindler's List, which was set to begin production in March 1993. Due to the tight timeline for that film and the extensive post-production required for Jurassic Park, Spielberg enlisted the help of his close friend and frequent collaborator, George Lucas, who owned ILM, to handle some post-production tasks. Lucas was credited with a 'special thanks' in the final film.
This article was first published in 2015 and has since been updated for 2022.
