Anne Hathaway is starring in a 1980s-set movie about dinosaurs, made by the director of It Follows. Jurassic Park became the first dinosaur blockbuster way back in 1993, and later the Jurassic World trilogy arrived to continue the legacy started by Steven Spielberg’s monster hit. Unfortunately, outside the Jurassic Park/World franchise, dinosaurs have left very few lasting footprints on the box office landscape.
Now another filmmaker is ready to take a stab at making dinosaurs work at the box office, as It Follows director David Robert Mitchell is reportedly mounting a dino-centered project for Bad Robot and Warner Bros., with Oscar-winner Hathaway set to star. Deadline confirmed those details, but on the podcast The Hot Mic, insider Jeff Sneider offered additional information including dinosaur angle as well as the movie’s 1980s setting, that has not yet been confirmed.
Can Dinosaurs Be Big Box Office Outside Of Jurassic World
Monster movies certainly can succeed at the box office, as has been proven by everything from King Kong to Godzilla to Pacific Rim. But films involving iconic movie monsters, or kaiju inspired by those classic movie monsters, are a different breed to films involving genuine dinosaurs. The argument can indeed be made that outside of Spielberg, who brought a genuine sense of wonder as well as a sense of fear to Jurassic Park, no filmmaker has truly cracked the code when it comes to making dinosaurs work on the big screen.
Given how inherently cinematic dinosaurs would seem to be, it’s a little surprising that more attempts haven’t been made to launch dinosaur-centered movie franchises. Unfortunately, crafting compelling stories around dinosaurs seems to be very tricky for writers to pull off. This year’s Adam Driver-led 65 provided just one more example of how not to make a dinosaur movie, if the intention is to draw in massive movie audiences.
It will indeed be fascinating to see how the unconventional and acclaimed Mitchell handles dinosaurs in his upcoming Hathaway-starring project. Given the director’s track record for making offbeat movies, it might be wrong to expect something genuinely audience-pleasing and mainstream. But if a studio is willing to bet on the project, it must have some potential to make bank at the box office. It will be interesting to see what new details emerge on this mysterious and intriguing dinosaur-related project in the months to come.
Source: Deadline, Jeff Sneider/Twitter
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