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Dinosaurs, after 65 million years of extinction, came back to life in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 blockbuster JURASSIC PARK. They’re still alive 32 years later in JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH, which should help keep exhibition alive & well when it opens 7/2 via Universal.

Michael Crichton’s novel, JURASSIC PARK, was published in 1990, but pre-production work on the movie began at Universal in 1989. The studio assumed, correctly as it turned out, that the book would be a bestseller platform for a hit movie.

Crichton started working in 1983 on what evolved into JURASSIC, which was then about the cloning of a pterodactyl from an egg. During two years of writing, Crichton realized the problem was he’d started by telling the story through the eyes of a child at the theme park when the dinos escaped. After changing that point of view, the story finally worked.

At least four studios were eager to make the movie — WB with Tim Burton to direct; Columbia with Richard Donner; 20th Century-Fox with Joe Dante; & Universal with Spielberg. Crichton decided to go with Spielberg and  Universal, which reportedly paid $2M pre-publication for the rights.

Spielberg and Crichton’s paths had crossed years earlier in quite different circumstances. It was very early in Spielberg’s career at Universal and he was asked to meet at the studio with a writer from whom they’d just purchased some book rights. Crichton & Spielberg later became friends and Spielberg liked how Crichton wrote about science in ways that could translate well to the big screen.

With JURASSIC, Spielberg was initially concerned that the computer graphics to create the dinos would be the kind used for cartoon video games. He envisioned using computer-generated dinosaurs, but after seeing an animated dino demo from Industrial Light & Magic of a T-Rex chasing a herd of smaller dinos, he decided this was the way to go. JURASSIC’s stars included Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum & Richard Attenborough.

When it was time for post-production on JURASSIC, Spielberg had to work by video link from Poland, where he was then shooting SCHINDLER’S LIST. He’s called that one of his most difficult situations ever as a filmmaker because it was so emotionally demanding to transition from filming his Holocaust drama to finishing his digital dinos.

Most of the scenes that showed full sized dinos were computer-generated, but partial shots of them were filmed using animatronics. The full-sized T-Rex animatron weighed about 15,000 pounds — but the real thing had tipped the scales at 5.5 to 8 tons!

JURASSIC also turned out to be much larger than life, opening June 11, 1993 to a then muscular $47M and climbing to $1.1B worldwide on a budget of $63M.