Given the success of the Jurassic World franchise, which will seemingly conclude with a star-studded finale, it seems hard to believe that there were several dino movies that were never made. While there are a lot of things fans don't know about the Jurassic Park movies, the scripts that were never produced seem to be the most elusive.
Why These Scripts Were Never Made
Over the course of developing the five (and the upcoming sixth) Jurassic Park films, many of the early drafts have been thrown out. This is the natural process of storytelling in Hollywood, even while adapting novels, such as Michael Crichton's "Jurassic Park" and "The Lost World". A story is refined over a lengthy period of time and adapted to suit the notes of the various creative minds that come in and out of the project. In fact, if you think about it, it's kind of a miracle that anything gets produced since it goes through such heavy workshopping. In some cases, this is a good thing. Some ideas need work to become fully realized. In other cases, especially when a studio is involved, a project can go through some much refining that it loses everything that makes it special and it ultimately becomes a cookie-cutter product that the studio can maximize profits from.
In the case of the produced Jurassic Park and Jurassic World films, every fan has an opinion about whether or not each movie was over or underworked. And, in all likelihood, they will feel the same about these scrapped ideas.
The Dino-Human Hybrid Plot And The Bad Script That Inspired It
Perhaps one of the most talked-about and ultimately controversial Jurassic Park movies is the dino-human hybrid script. It was an idea being floated around for the fourth Jurassic Park movie. In the early 2000s, Jurassic Park 3 director was shopping around a script for the fourth movie and eventually decided that he wanted to do a script about human-dino hybrids that hunted drug lords. He brought on a group of artists to create sculptures and drawings of what these creatures would look like and the end result was downright terrifying. Now, just because the images were scary doesn't necessarily mean that they would have made for a great film. After all, the idea does sound like it would have been a bit of a left turn for the franchise.
Ultimately, there was no script for the human-dino hybrid storyline. In fact, that idea came from an existing John Sayles script for Jurassic Park 4 after director Joe Johnston decided to retool things.
According to Den Of Geek, the John Sayles script was really more like a B-movie and therefore wasn't something director Joe Johnston was excited about, hence the radical idea to make dino-human hybrids. In the Sayles script, a military officer was sent to Isla Nublar by John Hammond to retrieve the Barbasol can that Dennis Nedry dropped on the island in the first movie. This was so they could make new dinosaurs to hunt and kill the older dinosaurs which had begun to invade the mainland.
By the end of the John Sayles script, a new hybrid dinosaur is introduced in an old castle in the Swiss Alps. This is, without a doubt, the origin in the Indominus Rex in Jurassic World and perhaps the seed for the idea of the final act of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Addionally, the script featured raptors that could follow human commands and multiple human/dino military operations.
In any case, the script and all the ideas were scrapped or completely retooled due to Steven Spielberg's disapproval. The project was then handed over to Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver before getting another re-write by Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly.
Rick Jaffa And Amanda Silver's Script
When Colin Trevorrow was hired to direct the fourth Jurassic Park film, there was already a draft by Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa, the writers behind Rise of the Planet of the Apes. This was after the John Sayles script and the dino-human hybrid ideas that Steven Spielberg scrapped. Of course, this script was re-written by Colin and Derek Connolly and eventually became Jurassic World. But before that, it was something else entirely...
This script had some of the militarized dinosaur ideas from the Sayles script as well as a character that eventually became Owen in Jurassic World. It did not, however, have the I-Rex. Instead, it had a frightening new dinosaur that is uncovered at the start of the movie. And this dinosaur was going to cause problems at a fully functioning theme park, much like Jurassic World. But Colin saw a chance to make the movie a little more his own and Jurassic World was born.
The Original Trilogy Scripts
Each of the first three Jurassic Park movies had a script that was drastically different than the final product that fans received.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park originally never had the San Diego finale and instead had more conflicts on the island. Jurassic Park 3 went through a drastic last-minute change where almost the entity of the cast had to scrap the characters they were working on in favor of new ones to suit a story change. This was something actor William H. Macy was publically furious about.
Most stunning of all were the changes made to the original Jurassic Park film. Before the final product, which was written by author Michael Crichton and screenwriter David Koepp, there were two other versions. Malia Scotch Marmo wrote the first script for Jurassic Park not long after Steven Spielberg struck a deal with Michael Crichton to adapt his then-unpublished book. Not long after, Micahel Crichton himself was brought on to write a script that had a lot more of the beats from his novel. But for one reason or another, Steven decided to bring David Koepp on to re-write the material, simplify it, and make it a more cohesive blockbuster film.
As much as some fans would have loved to see a more direct adaptation of Michael's novel, there's no denying the sheer magic of the first Jurassic Park movie.
