It’s been over 30 years since “Jurassic Park” changed movies forever, with Steven Spielberg’s 1993 adaptation of Michael Crichton’s sci-fi thriller novel delivering not only a perfect film, but a production that brought a systemic change to how Hollywood made movies. It also marked the last time a dinosaur franchise would become a bonafide hit, as Hollywood continues to try and fail to make audiences care about dinosaurs unless the title includes the word “Jurassic.” (David Robert Mitchell’s “The End of Oak Street” is the latest example of audiences largely avoiding non-“Jurassic” dino movies.)
Given how incredibly successful the “Jurassic Park” franchise has been, it’s no wonder it’s expanded to include spin-offs, including video games, cartoons, and more. But what is surprising is just how slow this franchise has been to grow. After all, the first film came out in 1993, at a time when practically every big movie somehow got turned into a cartoon, regardless of whether the original was for kids or not.
“Jurassic Park” did almost get an animated series back then, but it never made it to production. Still, we’ve heard about this show on and off over the years, and now, we finally have the very first bit of footage, reportedly titled “Escape From Jurassic Park.” The trailer surfaced on Twitter/X, and it quickly spread. Watch for yourself right below.
https://x.com/JurassicLibrary/status/2116597310410883504
The trailer for the Jurassic Park animated film,
The trailer for the “Jurassic Park” animated film, thought lost forever, doesn’t show much, but it does perfectly capture the look and tone of the Spielberg classic and mixes it with that recognizable ’90s Amblin animated look we saw in “Animaniacs” and other shows of the time.
The lost Jurassic Park animated series looks incredible
There’s not a whole lot of information about the lost “Jurassic Park” animated series. We do have old pitch decks and story treatments that give an idea of what the series could have been about, as well as old concept art from cartoon veterans Will Meugniot and artist William Stout, who were meant to spearhead the show.
Perhaps most importantly, the “Jurassic Park” TV series was meant to be a direct sequel to the first film, with the first season reportedly focusing on BioSyn creating its own rival dinosaur theme park, leading to — you guessed it — another dino outbreak.
According to William Stout, this was not going
According to William Stout, this “was not going to be a kiddy show (although kids of all ages, including myself, could enjoy it),” he said in his blog back in 2014. “They wanted the show to be a mature prime time series with top writers and state-of-the-art television animation augmented with quite a bit of CG animation.”
That much is clear from the leaked trailer for the “Jurassic Park” animated series. Though it still features kids, a big sense of adventure and wonder, and a visual style reminiscent of Don Bluth, the trailer also makes it clear this is a show about man-eating dinosaurs, and seems to hint at an appropriate amount of violence.
We also know from reports about the series bible and its proposed episodes that the “Jurassic Park” cartoon would have been serialized, with each episode building up to the next and the first season ending with the rival park opening. That’s a quite approach surprising for 1993, when serialization was virtually unheard of in animation.
Though the series never made it to production, we eventually did get a “Jurassic Park” cartoon (seen in the photo above), and it remains the best sequel to that original movie.
