Earlier today we posted an article giving details about the forthcoming Captain America film. The information in that article came from an interview Box Office carried out with the film’s director, Joe Johnston. In the same interview he also spoke about Jurassic Park 4:
“Well, there is going to be a Jurassic Park IV. And it’s going to be unlike anything you’ve seen. It breaks away from the first three—it’s essentially the beginning of the second Jurassic Park trilogy. It’s going to be done in a completely different way. That’s pretty much all I can tell you.”
This isn’t the first time Johnston has spoken about a forth film in the Jurassic Park franchise. Back in Novermber last year, the director of Jurassic Park 3 spoke to Ain’t It Cool News. During the conversation he told the site:
“Well, there is a great story for the fourth one that I would be interested in getting involved with and it’s nothing like the first three. It sort of takes the franchise off in a completely different direction, which is the only way I would want to get involved.”
While a forth Jurassic Park film could possibly be great fun, it’s hard not to think we’ve been here before.
Way back in 2002 Steven Spielberg and Sam Neill both spoke about the project, with Neill stating “Steven just blew me away with the story… Something frightening is happening concerning those dinosaurs that doesn’t necessarily bode well for us humans”. Universal even went so far as to talk about a summer 2005 release date for the pic, but despite the enthusiasm, nothing happened.
A few years later, just months before the summer 2005 release date, Stan Winston gave an update, explaining that Spielberg wasn’t happy with the script, and nothing would go before a camera until he was. Ten months later, producer Frank Marshall announced that there was a “good script”, and that production would begin in 2007, for a 2008 release.
2008 flew by without a dinosaur in sight, and there was no more mention of a forth Jurassic Park film until December of that year, when Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy told reporters at the junket for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button thatthe existingplans had fallen through. Kennedy, Marshall’s co-producer added, “when Crichton passed away, I sorta felt maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s a sign that we don’t mess with it.”
Since then it’s been all quiet on the Jurassic front until Johnston’s comments at the end of last year. No doubt we’ll hear some more about it next month, when Johnston is doing press for Wolfman, but given Spielberg’s insanely busy production schedule, that currently stretches past 2013, don’t expect to hear anything other than talk about Jurassic Park 4 for quite some time yet.
