Summary
- Sam Neill isn’t sure if a
Jurassic Park
TV show could sustain itself over multiple episodes. -
Jurassic Park
movies have traditionally been summer blockbusters that make use of their theatrical presentation. - Bringing dinosaurs to life on TV to the same standard as in the movies could be too expensive to be worth doing.
Jurassic Park star Sam Neill candidly addresses whether a TV show spinoff of the franchise would work. Released in 1993, Jurassic Park remains one of the most beloved entries in Steven Spielberg’s filmography. The film, which is based on a Michael Crichton novel of the same name, spawned a franchise that now consists of six movies in total, with a seventh, the confirmed Jurassic World 4, now on the way.
During a recent interview with CinemaBlend, Neill shares his thoughts about the possibility of a Jurassic Park TV show coming to fruition. The actor celebrates the franchise’s continued prominence in the culture, but admits that he’s not sure how well it would translate to the medium of television. Check out his full comment below:
“I have no idea about that at all. All I can tell you is for some reason, well for lots of reasons, the Jurassic franchise seems to have a lot of momentum, and there’s new generations discovering it all the time. I mean, we made the first one 30 years ago or something, and kids love dinosaurs.
“I think it’s a franchise… it keeps being rediscovered. But whether it can sustain eight episodes, I have no idea.”
Why The Jurassic Franchise Is Better Suited To The Big Screen
It All Goes Back To Steven Spielberg’s Original Jurassic Park
It’s worth mentioning, of course, that the Jurassic Park franchise has already found success in TV with Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, which concluded in 2022 after five seasons. This series, however, was animated and aimed at children. The franchise has yet to attempt a live-action TV show in the same world, but there’s reason to believe that it’s better off staying in the realm of blockbuster movie entertainment.
Another animated TV show,
Jurassic World: Chaos Theory
, is confirmed to be on the way.
Sipelberg was, for a time, considered the king of the summer blockbuster. The success of Jaws certainly contributed to this, but Jurassic Park cemented it. The film was a big hit, and it blew both audiences and critics away with its ground-breaking combination of practical and digital effects. All the sequels have, to varying degrees of success, attempted to recapture this same magic. Even though 2022’s Jurassic World Dominion was a major dud with critics, the film was still a big commercial success, speaking to the power of these films as theatrical experiences.
Title |
Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score |
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score |
---|---|---|
Jurassic Park |
92% |
91% |
The Lost World: Jurassic Park |
53% |
51% |
Jurassic Park 3 |
49% |
37% |
Jurassic World |
71% |
78% |
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom |
46% |
48% |
Jurassic World Dominion |
29% |
77% |
What’s more, making a Jurassic Park TV show could end up being a prohibitively expensive endeavor. If a show were to feature dinosaurs that look anywhere near as good as they do in the movies, it would require a great deal of time and money to get right. The economics of translating the franchise to TV, then, just might not make sense. It remains to be seen how the Jurassic Park franchise will continue to evolve, but a live-action TV show might not be the best move.
Source: CinemaBlend