Jurassic Park

Plot

Industrialist John Hammond has created Jurassic Park, an animal theme park featuring de-extinct dinosaurs, on the tropical island Isla Nublar, off the coast of Costa Rica. After a Velociraptor kills a dinosaur handler, the park's investors, represented by lawyer Donald Gennaro, threaten to pull funding unless experts certify the island's safety. Gennaro invites the chaotician Ian Malcolm, while Hammond invites the paleontologist Alan Grant and the paleobotanist Ellie Sattler. Upon arrival, the group is shocked to see living Brachiosaurus and Parasaurolophus. At the park's visitor center, the group learns that the cloning was accomplished by extracting dinosaur DNA from prehistoric mosquitoes preserved in amber. DNA from frogs and other animals was used to fill in gaps in the dinosaurs' genome. To prevent the dinosaurs from breeding, they are all made female by chromosome manipulation.

The group witnesses the hatching of a baby Velociraptor and visits the raptor enclosure. During lunch, they debate the ethics of cloning and of the park in general. Malcolm warns of the implications of genetic engineering while Grant and Sattler express uncertainty over the ability of humans and dinosaurs to coexist. Hammond's grandchildren, Lex and Tim, join the others for a park tour in two self-driving electric vehicles, while Hammond observes them from the control room. Most of the dinosaurs fail to appear, and Sattler stays behind to study a sick Triceratops. The tour is cut short as a tropical storm approaches. The park employees leave for the mainland on a boat while the visitors return to their vehicles.

Jurassic Park's disgruntled computer programmer, Dennis Nedry, was previously bribed to steal frozen dinosaur embryos by Lewis Dodgson, a man working for Hammond's corporate rival. To access the embryo storage room, Nedry deactivates the park's security system, cutting power to the tour vehicles. Most of the park's electric fences have been deactivated, which allows a Tyrannosaurus rex to escape and attack the touring group. The Tyrannosaurus devours Gennaro and injures Malcolm while Grant, Lex, and Tim escape. On his way to deliver the embryos to the island's docks, Nedry gets lost in the rain, crashes his jeep, and is killed by a venom-spitting Dilophosaurus.

Sattler helps the game warden Robert Muldoon search for survivors; they find Malcolm just before the Tyrannosaurus returns and chases them away. Grant, Lex and Tim take shelter in a tree and encounter a Brachiosaurus herd, discovering the broken shells of dinosaur eggs the following morning. Grant concludes that the dinosaurs are breeding, which is possible because of their amphibian DNA—amphibians like West African frogs can change their sex in a single-sex environment.

Production

Development

Michael Crichton's 1990 novel Jurassic Park was originally conceived as a screenplay in the 1980s, and went through numerous changes before being published as a book. In the late 1970s, a bidding war began for the film rights to Crichton's then-upcoming novel Congo, which would not be made into a film until 1995. With Jurassic Park, Crichton hoped to avoid another bidding war and the same protracted outcome by offering the film rights at a fixed price of $1.5 million, as he was primarily concerned with ensuring that a film actually be produced; he was less interested in receiving a top offer.

Crichton submitted the Jurassic Park manuscript to his publisher in May 1990. Director Steven Spielberg learned of the novel that month while he was discussing a screenplay with Crichton that would become the television series ER. Spielberg, who had a life-long fascination with dinosaurs and had long admired the work of Ray Harryhausen, expressed interest in Jurassic Park. After reading the galleys, he committed to direct the film adaptation. He liked the novel's sense of adventure and its scientific explanation for dinosaur resurrection, saying it provided "a really credible look at how dinosaurs might someday be brought back alongside modern mankind".

Crichton was represented by agent Michael Ovitz at Creative Artists Agency. Spielberg recalled that "the agency got ahold of it; and they, of course, encouraged a bidding war, even though Michael had kind of promised me the book privately". Major studios bid for the film rights, each with a director in mind. This included Warner Bros. and Tim Burton, Columbia Pictures and Richard Donner, and 20th Century Fox and Joe Dante. Crichton spoke with each director and endorsed Spielberg as the most likely candidate to get the film made, noting it would be "a very difficult picture" and calling Spielberg "arguably the most experienced and most successful director of these kinds of movies". Universal Pictures, also backing Spielberg as director, acquired the rights on May 15, 1990, less than a week after they were offered for sale and six months before the novel's publication. The film was announced on May 25, 1990.

James Cameron revealed in 2012 that he had tried to purchase the rights, only to discover that Spielberg had acquired them a few hours prior. Cameron said his version of Jurassic Park would have been "much nastier", comparing it with his film Aliens. He realized he was not the right director for Jurassic Park after seeing the finished product, commending Spielberg for making a film which could be enjoyed by children. Dante also praised it, but disagreed with Spielberg's decision to make Hammond more of a protagonist, a departure from the novel.

Writing

Crichton had mixed feelings about being offered a further $500,000 to write the film adaptation: "I was so tired of the whole area that I didn't really want to do the screenplay. I was sick of Malcolm and I was sick of Grant–and I was even sick of the dinosaurs. But I really felt that I knew the dimensions of the story." Crichton recognized that, by writing the screenplay himself, the project could avoid the same issues he experienced while developing the novel.

Before writing the film, he met several times with Spielberg to discuss which aspects of the book he liked and disliked. Crichton completed his first draft on September 7, 1990, but said "nobody was happy with it at all"; the draft skipped ahead to action rather than building up to it, as in the novel. At Spielberg's suggestion, Crichton rewrote the script in 40-page increments, with the first batch being better received. Crichton was aided by existing storyboards and sketches as he continued to rework the script, with the remaining 80 pages completed on January 19, 1991. Production designer Rick Carter held story meetings with Crichton while he wrote, suggesting ideas for Crichton to implement. Some notable ways Crichton's early drafts differ from the finished film include Hammond initially being less sympathetic and having a much less prominent role and Malcolm lacking a sense of humor.

Crichton had agreed only to write a preliminary version of the film: "I told Steven, 'I'll do a draft for you and cut it down to budgetable size; but then you're going to want somebody else to polish the characters.' I think that sort of surprised him, because writers never say, 'Get somebody else.'" After Crichton's departure, Carter modified Crichton's revised draft, incorporating into it a number of ideas that they had discussed together. Several key elements of the finished film began with Carter's edits, including Hammond recruiting Grant and Sattler, as well as Hammond's general demeanor and the development of his character arc. Meanwhile, the production crew searched for a new writer, considering, among others, playwright Tom Stoppard, who had written the screenplay for Spielberg and Kennedy's film Empire of the Sun.

During this time, Spielberg was filming Hook, which was co-written by Malia Scotch Marmo and produced by Kennedy. While on the set of Hook, Scotch Marmo was reading the Jurassic Park novel and learned from Kennedy about the film adaptation, accepting an offer to work on its screenplay. Scotch Marmo began writing Jurassic Park in October 1991. She chose to start from scratch, with the novel as her basis, although she did read Crichton's screenplay and consulted with him. Spielberg also agreed to provide her with his own copy of the novel, which contained highlighted aspects of the book that he enjoyed. In addition, she looked at the numerous storyboards produced up to that point.

Casting

Because much of the film's budget was going toward its dinosaur effects, Spielberg sought to cast relatively unknown actors, saying: "Basically, I wanted good, solid actors who weren't going to charge outrageous prices. I didn't want to spend three to five million dollars apiece on actors." Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss were considered for the role of Alan Grant, but were deemed too expensive. William Hurt, Harrison Ford, and Tim Robbins turned down the role, which eventually went to Sam Neill. Laura Dern was cast as Ellie Sattler, after Robin Wright and Juliette Binoche turned down offers to play the character. Embeth Davidtz, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Helen Hunt had also auditioned for the role. Spielberg initially compiled a group of young actresses to be considered for Sattler, but Scotch Marmo felt that they were ingénues, and wouldn't be realistic for the role of a scientist, instead suggesting Dern, who she felt would be more believable. Despite a 20-year age difference between Neill and Dern, they found their onscreen romance appropriate for the time. Upon reuniting for Jurassic World Dominion, Dern said she was surprised to realize how much of an age gap there is between them.

Casting director Janet Hirshenson felt that Jeff Goldblum was right to play Ian Malcolm after reading the novel, although Jim Carrey also auditioned for the role. According to Hirshenson, Carrey "was terrific, too, but I think pretty quickly we all loved the idea of Jeff". Other actors considered for the part included Tim Curry, Albert Brooks, Fisher Stevens, Barry Miller, Judd Nelson, Kevin Pollak, Timothy Hutton, and Charles Grodin. Richard Attenborough was cast as John Hammond, but was initially hesitant to join the project, which marked his first acting role in 14 years. He eventually signed on at the insistence of Spielberg, who told him, "I can't see anyone else playing it but you". Sean Connery, who Crichton had previously worked with on The First Great Train Robbery, was also a top choice for Hammond, but Connery's fee was too high. Neill, Dern, Goldblum, and Attenborough were cast late in pre-production, with only a few weeks to prepare for their roles. According to Neill, the process "all happened real quick. I hadn't read the book, knew nothing about it, hadn't heard anything about it, and in a matter of weeks I'm working with Spielberg." The start of filming was delayed a month to accommodate Neill's schedule.

Ariana Richards, who plays Lex Murphy, said: "I was called into a casting office, and they just wanted me to scream. I heard later on that Steven had watched a few girls on tape that day, and I was the only one who ended up waking his sleeping wife off the couch, and she came running through the hallway to see if the kids were all right." Christina Ricci also auditioned to play Lex. Joseph Mazzello had screen-tested for a role in Hook, but was deemed too young. Spielberg promised him they would work together on a future film, subsequently casting him for the role of Tim.

Design

Production designer Rick Carter did not want the fictional theme park to have "a lot of commercialized edifices that feel shallow and overly bright and overly energetic. Even though that is something that the park would probably evolve into if it were finished, I thought as a film it would feel shallow. This is, after all, not Disneyland." Carter designed the theme park to incorporate building designs characteristic of the film's setting of Costa Rica. The exterior design of the park's visitor center was loosely based on a Jerusalem temple. The interior design featured a dinosaur theme, including skeletons and a mural, the latter by artist Doug Henderson.

For the control room, set designer Lauren Cory referred to computer environments at several theme parks as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The set included a wall-mounted 6-by-8-foot (1.8 m × 2.4 m) screen and numerous computers, lent by Apple, Silicon Graphics, Supermac Technologies, and Thinking Machines Corporation, together worth over $1.7 million. Jurassic Park was the first film to have computer screens running on-camera in real time. In previous films, CRT monitors failed to display correctly on film due to technical issues, resulting in computer screens needing to be inserted in post-production. The film crew solved this issue by dropping the refresh rate in the screens displayed in the film to 48 hertz. A second room was built adjacent to the control room, in which a team managed by graphics supervisor Michael Backes controlled the graphics seen on the screens in the control room. A full 3D model of Isla Nublar was created to display on the main projection screen, and Earthwatch, a company that made 3D visualizations for computer stations, provided a hurricane model to use on the projection screen.

The park's vehicles were designed by art director John Bell. The novel has electric-powered Toyota Land Cruisers as the tour vehicles, but Spielberg made a deal with the Ford Motor Company, which provided seven Ford Explorers. They received a custom paint job and a plexiglass roof. Like in the novel, the vehicles are presented as autonomous cars. They travel on a track that, in reality, was non-functional. Industrial Light & Magic, along with veteran customizer George Barris, modified the Explorers to be controlled by drivers hidden in the trunk of the vehicles, with front-mounted cameras allowing them to see the road. Barris also customized the Jeep Wranglers used by the park's workers. For the sequence in which the Explorers are attacked by the T. rex, special effects supervisor Michael Lantieri used a complicated system of cables, winches, and rams to rig the vehicles to essentially crush themselves.

Filming

The film's fictional setting of Isla Nublar is located near Costa Rica, which was briefly considered as a filming location early on; this idea was scrapped as production would have occurred during the country's rainy season. Puerto Rico was seriously considered as well, until Spielberg settled on Kauaʻi, Hawaii. He attributed this decision to his age: "Had I been twenty-six instead of forty-five, I might have gone to Yucatan or the Philippines or Costa Rica–someplace really rugged." He also liked the idea of "staying in a nice Hawaiian hotel with room service and a pool", while stating that the tropical landscapes were as good as, or better than, the alternative sites. In addition, Spielberg was familiar with Hawaii, having filmed there in the past, and was concerned about infrastructure and accessibility at the other locations. Set construction began in early June 1992, nearly three months before the start of filming. Some of the locations were remote and only accessible with off-road vehicles.

After 25 months of pre-production, filming began on August 24, 1992, at Olokele Canyon. Richards and Mazzello attended school during filming, and Spielberg would sometimes pull Mazzello, who had expressed interest in directing, out of classes to give him lessons about the profession. The three-week Kauaʻi shoot was focused on exterior scenes, many of them set on Isla Nublar during daytime. Spontaneous cloud coverage occurred frequently, necessitating the use of lighting and film exposure tricks in order to match with previously shot footage. Scenes of the park's visitors arriving and departing Isla Nublar, via helicopter, were filmed at Mānāwaiopuna Falls, which became commonly known as Jurassic Falls after the film's release. Keōpuka Rock, alternatively known as Jurassic Rock, was used for an early shot of the helicopter as it approaches Isla Nublar. The rock is located near the island of Maui, but filming otherwise continued on Kauaʻi.

The exterior of the Jurassic Park visitor center was built on the grounds of the Valley House Plantation Estate. It was constructed as a 60-foot (18 m) high facade, nearly 200 feet (61 m) in length. A Jurassic Park gate, marking the start of the theme park tour, was built at the base of Mount Waiʻaleʻale.

An early scene, set at an amber mine in the Dominican Republic, was filmed near Hoʻopiʻi Falls. A meeting between Nedry and Dodgson was shot in Kapaʻa, standing in for San José, Costa Rica. The raptor enclosure set was built at Limahuli Garden and Preserve, operated by the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG). Allerton Garden, another NTBG property, was used in two instances: a set depicting the maintenance shed exterior, and a scene in which Grant discovers a dinosaur nest and realizes the animals are breeding.

Dinosaurs on screen

For Jurassic Park, Spielberg sought to go beyond a simple monster movie, with Carter stating that they "tried to find the animal in the dinosaur as opposed to the monster in the dinosaur. The idea was not to make them any less threatening, but rather to keep them from doing as much 'monster schtick.'" Underscoring this point, Spielberg banned the words "monster" and "creature" on set, forcing the crew to refer to the dinosaurs as "animals" instead. Spielberg hired paleontologist Jack Horner to ensure that the dinosaurs would be designed and portrayed accurately, based on then-current knowledge of the animals. Certain concepts about dinosaurs were followed, like the theory that they evolved into birds and were not related to reptiles; Horner was a strong advocate for the theory, which was not widely accepted at the time. This prompted the removal of the raptors' flicking tongues in early animatics, as Horner complained it was implausible; his suggestion for a replacement shot, the kitchen door window fogging up as a raptor breathes on it, emphasized that the raptors were warm-blooded like birds but unlike reptiles. Horner accepted that some artistic license would be used, stating that "if I could demonstrate that something was true or not true, then he would go with that, but if I had some question about it and we didn’t really have much evidence about it, he would go with whatever he thought would make the best movie".

Despite the film title's referencing the Jurassic period, Brachiosaurus and Dilophosaurus are the only dinosaurs featured that lived during that time; the other species in the film did not exist until the Cretaceous. The latter period is mentioned early in the film when Grant describes the ferocity of Velociraptor to a young boy, saying: "Try to imagine yourself in the Cretaceous period".

The dinosaurs were created through various methods, including animatronics and computer-generated imagery (CGI). Spielberg sought to use full-scale dinosaurs on-set as much as possible, rather than relying on stop motion, a post-production method commonly used in dinosaur films up to that point. He knew, early on, that stop motion would still be needed for wide shots of the dinosaurs. To help create the dinosaurs, Spielberg consulted and worked closely with Dennis Muren, an effects supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), which had already provided effects for several of his films. Spielberg hired Phil Tippett, who had previously created stop-motion dinosaur effects for the short film Prehistoric Beast and the documentary film Dinosaur!, to create the dinosaur wide shots using go motion, a variation of stop motion, with ILM set to refine his work through compositing and adding motion blur. Tippett was hired very early in production, prior to the publication of Crichton's novel, and gave input to Spielberg and Koepp during the development of the script, providing them with guidance on dinosaur accuracy as well as what was possible to film based upon his effects experience and knowledge of dinosaurs. Also hired early in production was special effects supervisor Michael Lantieri, who was heavily involved with determining how to create full-sized dinosaurs.

Post-production

Editing had already started during filming, and within days of wrapping, Kahn had a rough cut ready, allowing Spielberg to start filming Schindler's List. During this time, Spielberg left Kennedy in charge of the day-to-day post-production responsibilities on Jurassic Park. He monitored the progress while filming in Poland by viewing effects shots, which were transmitted to him through fiber-optic cable and two satellite channels which cost $1.5 million a week to operate and were encrypted to prevent piracy. Four times a week, he and Kahn, who was also in Poland for Schindler's List, had teleconferences with Kennedy and ILM's crew. Spielberg estimated that 40 percent of the post-production process was done through this long-distance arrangement. He said working simultaneously on two vastly different productions was "a bipolar experience", where he used "every ounce of intuition on Schindler's List and every ounce of craft on Jurassic Park".

Along with the digital effects, Spielberg wanted the film to be the first with digital sound. He funded the creation of DTS (Digital Theater Systems) to allow audiences to "really hear the movie the way it was intended to be heard". Rather than the audio track being directly contained on the 35mm film, the film's audio was played onto a CD-ROM disc, with a backup analog soundtrack in case of problems. The sound effects crew was supervised by Spielberg's friend and ILM founder George Lucas. Spielberg flew on weekends from Poland to Paris, where he met with sound designer Gary Rydstrom for updates. Rydstrom initially asked scientists what dinosaurs had sounded like, but paleontologists had not yet determined the answer to his question, so he began from scratch. He chose to use only organic sounds for dinosaur vocalizations, and built a library of animal sounds to draw from, all of which were recorded for the film, with no stock sound effects. Unlike with most films, Rydstrom's work started before filming, as the mouths of the animatronics on set needed to match the dinosaur noises. Rydstrom considered the sound process fun, given the film had all kinds of noise—animal sounds, rain, gunshots, car crashes—and at times no music. The process was finished by the end of April 1993.

In addition to the CGI dinosaurs, ILM also created elements such as water splashing, digital humans, and cars. They also, in a sequence where Ariana Richards's stunt double accidentally looked up at the camera, replaced her face by having Richards match the movement, rotoscoping her face, and compositing it onto the double's body. This is considered the first ever use of digital face replacement in a film. In total, a small team of six animators and 40 artists in the computer graphics department at ILM worked on the film. The technology for the effects dramatically improved through the course of production, as shots that ILM initially believed to be impossible became achievable by the end of production. This particularly impacted the climax, which was the last CGI sequence to be planned out because of Spielberg's last-minute decision to change it. Tippett played a major role in arranging the choreography of the fight, including camera angles and the dinosaur behavior. ILM used harder, more complex shots in the finale than anywhere else in the film, including tight close-ups on the CGI T. rex, which required more detailed texture maps than all the other shots in the film. Muren pushed to shoot the climax as though it was a real animal fight, with a wide-angle lens and slightly delayed camera movements to emphasize the dinosaurs' spontaneity. Jurassic Park was completed on May 28, 1993, after ILM concluded its CGI work.

Soundtrack

John Williams, a frequent composer of Spielberg's films, began scoring Jurassic Park at the end of February 1993. Alexander Courage and John Neufeld provided the score's orchestrations. Williams wrote themes designed to evoke a sense of wonder, attempting to imbue audiences with the feeling of "admiration and respect" that small children have when viewing dinosaur exhibits at a natural history museum. Three central themes were written, each with multiple variations. The first, associated with the herbivorous dinosaurs, was described by Williams as having "almost a religious aspect". The second, a more adventurous theme, is more unpredictable and adaptable, reflecting the park's capacity for wonder and terror. The third theme is built around a four-note motif, and is associated with the Velociraptors and the T. rex. However, two major sequences involving the T. rex do not use this theme. One is the escape sequence, which uses no music at all to increase tension, and the other is the T. rex's entrance in the climax, which was originally supposed to use the theme before Spielberg decided to use the adventure theme to reflect the T. rex being a heroic figure in the climax rather than a source of terror. Williams's recording session was on March 30, 1993, well into post-production, which meant that Spielberg was unable to sit in on the recording for the first time in all of their collaborations, as he was occupied filming Schindler's List in Poland. Instead, Williams previewed his scores on a piano for Spielberg to listen to before he left, and Spielberg was sent the full music in audio cassette form as it was finished. The first soundtrack album was released on May 25, 1993. For the 20th anniversary of the film's release, a new soundtrack was issued for digital download on April 9, 2013, including four bonus tracks selected by Williams.

Marketing

Universal took the lengthy pre-production period to carefully plan the Jurassic Park marketing campaign. It cost $65 million and included deals with 100 companies to market 1,000 products. These included several Jurassic Park video games, a toy line by Kenner distributed by Hasbro, McDonald's "Dino-Sized meals", and a novelization for young children. The film's merchandising tagline was "If it's not 'Jurassic Park', it's extinct". By March 1994, licensed merchandise sales reached an estimated $1 billion, of which the production companies made 6–10%. Horner served as an advisor for the paleontological accuracy of the toys, which were produced over two years. Universal spent about $20 million on television advertising, while an estimated $65 million was spent on television advertising for Jurassic Park tie-in products. According to a 1994 survey, 98% of American adults had been exposed to the film an average of 25.2 times.

Much care was put into creating a logo that would serve to equally represent the fictional park and promote the movie and its tie-in products. Universal creative director Tom Martin teamed up with the design firm of Mike Salisbury, and out of 100 designs came one created by Sandy Collora, one of Winston's employees. The design took the T. rex skeleton drawn by Chip Kidd for the book's cover, put it into a circle, and added a rectangle with the title to create a badge-like structure. A jungle silhouette was added underneath for scale, and a Neuland typeface was used on the title. John Alvin was hired to design the film's poster; he went through numerous revisions, with the final design simply using the film's T. rex logo.

Neill recalled that the film was essentially marketed by Universal with the idea that the studio "could make huge blockbusters without 'movie stars", stating, "This was true enough, but I think it slightly irked us, the actors, to be reminded from time to time we were not real 'stars.'" Universal would instead tease the film's dinosaurs as the primary attraction. A teaser trailer was released in December 1992, in which a mine worker discovers a piece of amber that would be used by the theme park. A full trailer debuted shortly thereafter, providing only a fleeting glimpse of the dinosaurs, a tactic described by journalist Josh Horowitz, in 2007, as "that old Spielberg axiom of never revealing too much". Due to a ruling by the British Board of Film Classification, the film's marketing in the United Kingdom was required to include a warning about disturbing content. This was only the second film to have such a content warning, after Spielberg's Jaws. The film was marketed with the tagline "An Adventure 65 Million Years in the Making". This was a joke Spielberg made on set about the genuine, thousands of years old mosquito in amber used for Hammond's walking stick. Jurassic Park was heavily marketed against its primary competitor, Last Action Hero, which ultimately struggled at the box office and with critics.

Release

Theatrical

Jurassic Park premiered at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C. on June 9, 1993, in support of two children's charities. The film had previews on 1,412 screens starting at 9:30 pm EDT on Thursday, June 10, and officially opened on Friday in 2,404 theater locations and an estimated 3,400 screens. Following the film's release, the Dinosaur Society and the American Museum of Natural History held a "The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park" exhibit featuring various props, dinosaur models, and other behind-the-scenes material from the film. The film began its international release on June 25, in Brazil before further openings in South America and then rolling out around most of the rest of the world from July 16 until October. The United Kingdom premiere helped save the Lyric Theatre in Carmarthen, Wales from closure, an event chronicled in the 2022 film Save the Cinema.

Re-releases

In anticipation of the film's Blu-ray release, Jurassic Park had a digital print released in UK cinemas on September 23, 2011.

Two years later, for the 20th anniversary of Jurassic Park, a 3D version of the film was released in cinemas. Spielberg declared that he had produced the film with a sort of "subconscious 3D", as scenes feature animals walking toward the cameras and some effects of foreground and background overlay. In 2011, he stated that Jurassic Park was the only one of his works he had considered for a conversion. Once he saw the 3D version of Titanic in 2012, he liked the new look of the film so much that he hired the same retrofitting company, Stereo D. Stereo D executive Aaron Parry said the conversion was an evolution of what the company had done with Titanic, "being able to capitalize on everything we learned with Jim [Cameron] on Titanic and take it into a different genre and movie, and one with so many technical achievements". The studio had the help of ILM, which contributed some elements and updated effects shots for a better visual enhancement. It opened in the United States and seven other territories on April 5, 2013, with other countries receiving the re-release over the following six months. In 2018, the film was re-released in select theaters to celebrate its 25th anniversary. On August 25, 2023, the 3D version of the film was re-released in theaters to celebrate its 30th anniversary.

Reception

Box office

Jurassic Park became the highest-grossing film released worldwide up to that time, surpassing Spielberg's own film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It grossed $3.1 million from Thursday night screenings in the United States and Canada on June 10, and $50.1 million in its first weekend from 2,404 theaters, breaking the opening weekend record set by Batman Returns the year before. Jurassic Park held that record until 1995 when Batman Forever took it. It grossed a record $81.7 million by the end of its first week, and reached $100 million in a record nine days, and remained at number one for three weeks. It eventually grossed $357 million in the US and Canada, ranking second of all-time behind E.T. Box Office Mojo estimates the film sold over 86.2 million tickets in the US in its initial theatrical run.

Jurassic Park also did very well in international markets and was the first film to gross $500 million overseas, surpassing the record $280 million overseas gross of E.T. In Brazil, it also set an opening weekend record with a gross of $1,738,198 from 141 screens. It went on to break further opening records around the world including in the United Kingdom, Japan, India, South Korea, Mexico, Germany, Australia, Taiwan, Italy, Denmark, South Africa and France. In Japan, the film grossed $8.4 million from 237 screens in two days (including previews).

In the United Kingdom, Jurassic Park also beat the opening weekend record set by Batman Returns with a gross of £4.875 million ($7.4 million) from 434 screens, including a record £443,000 from Thursday night previews, and also beat Terminator 2: Judgment Day's opening week record, with £9.2 million. The film held the UK record until it was beaten by Independence Day in 1996. After 12 days of grossing over £1 million a day, Jurassic Park was the eighth highest-grossing film of all time in the UK. After just three weeks, it became the highest-grossing, surpassing Ghost and eventually doubling the record with a gross of £47.9 million. It spent a record eight consecutive weekends at the top of the UK box office. Jurassic Park would remain as Europe's box office leader before being surpassed by Aladdin.

In Australia, the film had the widest release ever and was the first to open with a one-day gross of more than A$1 million, grossing A$5,447,000 (US$3.6 million) in its first four days from 192 screens, beating the opening record of Terminator 2 and the weekly record set by The Bodyguard with a gross of A$6.8 million. In the same weekend, it also set an opening record in Germany with a gross of DM 16.8 million ($10.5 million) from 644 screens. In Italy, it had the widest release ever in 344 theaters and grossed a record Lire 9.5 billion ($6.1 million). After 115 days of release, it surpassed E.T. as the highest-grossing film worldwide of all time. It eventually opened in France on October 20, 1993, and grossed a record 75 million F ($13 million) in its opening week from over 515 screens. Its first week admissions in France of almost 2.3 million surpassed the previous record set by Rambo: First Blood Part II in 1985.

Critical response

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively reported an approval rating of 91% based on 204 reviews, with an average rating of 8.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Jurassic Park is a spectacle of special effects and lifelike animatronics, with some of Spielberg's best sequences of sustained awe and sheer terror since Jaws." Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on reviews from 21 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

Janet Maslin of The New York Times called it "a true movie milestone, presenting awe- and fear-inspiring sights never before seen on the screen [...] On paper, this story is tailor-made for Mr. Spielberg's talents [but] [i]t becomes less crisp on screen than it was on the page, with much of the enjoyable jargon either mumbled confusingly or otherwise thrown away." In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers called the film "colossal entertainment—the eye-popping, mind-bending, kick-out-the-jams thrill ride of summer and probably the year [...] Compared with the dinos, the characters are dry bones, indeed. Crichton and co-screenwriter David Koepp have flattened them into nonentities on the trip from page to screen." Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four: "The movie delivers all too well on its promise to show us dinosaurs. We see them early and often, and they are indeed a triumph of special effects artistry, but the movie is lacking other qualities that it needs even more, such as a sense of awe and wonderment, and strong human story values." Henry Sheehan of Sight & Sound argued: "The complaints over Jurassic Park's lack of story and character sound a little off the point", noting the story arc of Grant learning to protect Hammond's grandchildren despite his initial dislike of them. Caroline Westbrook of Empire gave the film five stars, calling it "quite simply one of the greatest blockbusters of all time".

Home media

Jurassic Park was first officially released on VHS by CIC Video on October 3, 1994, in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where it had an exclusive seven-week rental window before going on sale on November 21. In the rest of the world, it was officially released on VHS and LaserDisc on October 4, 1994 (by MCA/Universal Home Video in the United States). Despite the official release date, most US retailers decided not to wait that long and were selling it by 1 October. The film's home video release was accompanied by a $65 million advertising campaign. With 24 million units sold, Jurassic Park is the fourth-best-selling VHS tape ever. A THX certified Widescreen VHS was released on September 9, 1997.

The film was also first released as a Collector's Edition DVD and VHS on October 10, 2000, in both Widescreen (1.85:1) and Full Screen (1.33:1) versions, and as part of a box set with the sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park and both movies' soundtrack albums. It was the 13th-best-selling DVD of 2000 counting both versions, finishing the year with 910,000 units sold. Following the release of Jurassic Park III, a new box set with all the films called Jurassic Park Trilogy was released on December 11, 2001. It was repackaged as Jurassic Park Adventure Pack on November 29, 2005.

The trilogy was released on Blu-ray on October 25, 2011, debuting at number five on the Blu-ray charts, and was nominated as the best release of the year by both the Las Vegas Film Critics Society and the Saturn Awards. In 2012, Jurassic Park was among twenty-five films chosen by Universal for a box set celebrating the studio's 100th anniversary, while also receiving a standalone 100th anniversary Blu-ray featuring an augmented reality cover. The following year, the 20th anniversary 3D conversion was issued on Blu-ray 3D.

The film, alongside The Lost World, Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World, was released as part of a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray box set on May 22, 2018, in honor of the original film's 25th anniversary.

Television premiere

Jurassic Park was broadcast on television for the first time on NBC on May 7, 1995, following the April 26 airing of The Making of Jurassic Park. Some 68.12 million people tuned in, garnering NBC a 36 percent share of all available viewers that night. Jurassic Park was the highest-rated theatrical film broadcast on television by any network compared to theatrical film ratings since April 1987. In June–July 1995, the film aired a number of times on the Turner Network Television (TNT) network.

Legacy

Over the years, film critics and industry professionals have often cited Jurassic Park as one of the greatest and most influential movies in history. In 2001, the American Film Institute named Jurassic Park the 35th-most thrilling film of all time. Two years later, Empire called the first encounter with a Brachiosaurus the 28th-most magical moment in cinema. In 2004, Empire judged Jurassic Park to be the sixth-most influential film in the magazine's 15-year lifetime. Film Review, in 2005, declared the film to be one of the five most important in the magazine's 55-year history.

Jurassic Park is included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and in a 2007 list by The Guardian of "1000 films to see before you die". In 2008, an Empire poll of readers, filmmakers, and critics also rated it one of the 500 greatest films of all time. In a 2010 poll, the readers of Entertainment Weekly rated it the greatest summer movie of the previous 20 years. In 2014, it was ranked as one of the 50 greatest films of all time in an extensive poll undertaken by The Hollywood Reporter, which balloted every studio, agency, publicity firm and production house in the Hollywood region. In 2018, Jurassic Park was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, which deemed it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

In 2019, Mattel produced a line of new toys, including figures based on the film's characters. The film's 30th anniversary was marked with the release of various merchandise, including new toys from Mattel and Lego, as well as an event at San Diego Comic-Con.

Impact

Jurassic Park had a wide-ranging impact, particularly as an influence on other films due to its breakthrough use of computer-generated imagery. The film is regarded as a landmark for visual effects. Film historian Tom Shone said of the film's innovation and influence, "in its way, Jurassic Park heralded a revolution in movies as profound as the coming of sound in 1927". Numerous filmmakers saw the effects as a realization that many of their visions, previously thought unfeasible or too expensive, were now possible. ILM owner George Lucas, realizing the success of creating realistic live dinosaurs by his own company, began work on the Star Wars prequel trilogy; Stanley Kubrick decided to invest in pet project A.I. Artificial Intelligence, which he later got Spielberg to direct; and Peter Jackson began to re-explore his childhood love of fantasy films, a path that led him to The Lord of the Rings and King Kong. A number of visual effects companies transitioned to creating CGI as a result of the film, including Tippett Studio and Pacific Title & Art Studio. Winston, enthusiastic about the new technology pioneered by the film, joined with IBM and director James Cameron to form a new special effects company, Digital Domain. Jurassic Park also inspired films and documentaries with dinosaurs such as the American adaptation of Godzilla, Carnosaur (in which Dern's mother Diane Ladd starred), and Walking with Dinosaurs.

Jurassic Park was praised for its modern portrayal of dinosaurs. Many of the findings of the dinosaur renaissance, such as dinosaurs being warm-blooded, active, intelligent, and genetically related to birds, were reflected in the film, which updated the general public's previous perception of dinosaurs as being sluggish, stupid, and entirely extinct. However, the public has also absorbed scientific inaccuracies in the film, such as the size of Velociraptor, and the general view of dinosaurs has stuck with the way that they were portrayed in Jurassic Park ever since the film's release, without being updated to reflect decades of additional discoveries that have occurred since 1993. The film also popularized the concept of de-extinction among the public. As of 2025, Colossal Biosciences is attempting to use fragmented DNA to bring back extinct species such as the woolly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger, and dodo, prompting comparisons to the film. Film director Gareth Edwards visited its laboratories before the release of Jurassic World Rebirth and said, "This is the real Jurassic Park, isn't it?"

The film has been said to have given rise to a Jurassic Park generation: young people who were inspired to become paleontologists. Among the general public, the film also created an interest in dinosaurs, leading to increased funding for paleontology. This, combined with the rising number of paleontologists, resulted in a surge of dinosaur discoveries. Following the success of the film, Universal and Amblin started the Jurassic Foundation, a nonprofit organization that funds paleontological research. Horner, as part of his compensation for serving as the film's paleontological advisor, received significant research grants from Spielberg and Universal.

Franchise

Jurassic Park was the beginning of a multimedia franchise. Following the film's success, Crichton wrote a sequel to his novel, titled The Lost World and released in 1995. Spielberg and Koepp returned respectively as director and writer for the 1997 film adaptation, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Crichton did not write any further novels in the series, although additional films would be made, featuring previously unused elements from the two books.

The film was the beginning of a film series, broken up into one trilogy composed of Jurassic Park, The Lost World, and Jurassic Park III, a second trilogy composed of Jurassic World, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and Jurassic World Dominion, followed by another sequel, Jurassic World Rebirth. Spielberg has served as executive producer for every film after The Lost World. The original film remains the highest rated among critics.

Two spin-off animated series were also made, titled Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous and its sequel Jurassic World: Chaos Theory.

The film's story was originally continued in numerous comics, starting in 1993. Two video game sequels, Jurassic Park 2: The Chaos Continues and Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition, would also be released in 1994. Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, based on the film's concept of building a dinosaur theme park, was released in 2003. Two subsequent games are set shortly after the events of the film – Jurassic Park: The Game, released in 2011; and the upcoming Jurassic Park: Survival, announced in 2023.

The film's success also resulted in theme park attractions, with Jurassic Park: The Ride opening at Universal Studios Hollywood in 1996. Other Universal parks would subsequently add their own Jurassic Park rides. Universal Islands of Adventure, opened in Orlando, Florida in 1999, has an entire section dedicated to Jurassic Park that includes many rides and attractions.