JP3: The Budget Cut
Hehe, okay, when you have a minute or so, head over to LickMySweaty.com and download "JP3: The Budget Cut". It's funny. (Thanks 'tha filsta')

January 17, 2001

Own a JP3 Promo Photo
'JP3me' noticed this Ebay auction, where a "2001 Universal Press kit" is up for grabs -- and yes, the first JP3 publicity photo is in the collection. The auction closes in 4 days. Happy bidding!

January 16, 2001

Macy Talks JP3, Release Date Change?, Nublar/Sorna Debate Continues
Countingdown.com points us towards this interview with William H. Macy in the Australian magazine 'The Age', where the JP3 star comments about the upcoming film. "This is filmmaking at ... some sort of a pinnacle, when it comes to the technical stuff," Macy says. "The puppetry stuff we're doing is mindboggling." The article also gives this description of the plot: "In the movie, Macy and Tea Leoni play the parents of a teenage boy who gets stranded on Isla Nublar -- the dinosaur island -- in a freak parasailing accident. Along with Sam Neill, they set out to rescue him." Strangely, the film is said to have an "August release", though whether this means the release date has been moved is unknown (last we heard, the film isn't scheduled to be released in Australia until late July or early August). As for the continuing Sorna/Nublar debate, see my comment on the subject over on the message board.

January 13, 2001

JP3 DVD by End of 2001?
Some interesting news from the guys over at The Digital Bits, everyone's favorite DVD news site -- According to official sources at this year's Video Software Association Show, a "collectors edition" DVD of Jurassic Park 3 is on Universal Home Video's slate for release "before this year is through." That would certainly be a very fast release, since the film isn't even going to come out in theaters until July...

January 12, 2001

Feathered Raptor Crests
Several people have asked me about the so-called "feathered head crests" that the raptors in JP3 are rumored to have, and whether they existed or not in yesterday's video interview (see below). At first I couldn't see them, but MaTt sent along this pic, where you can clearly see some sort of protrusion on the raptor's head. Interesting..

Color Publicity Still
Jordan Mallon noticed there is a color version of the JP3 publicity shot released Wednesday (Story) over at Mothership.com.

Chat Fixed, inGenNET Down
Wondering where inGenNET has gone? 'Neo_Maze', the sites' webmaster, reports that they've had big big problems with their host, and are currently looking for another provider. On the home front, the chat room, which has been down for several days, should now be up and running again.

January 11, 2001

Alessandro Nivola
[About his character] "Billy is a protege to Sam Neill, who works with him on a dig site. "Billy is much more accepting of modern technology and less of a traditionalist [like Grant]. He is willing to make greater compromises than Sam's character to keep the dig site open. He's a decent kid, he has really noble aspirations, he just gets carried away here and there."
[About the action] "I certainly have all kinds of action encounters.. I fly through this canyon, and smash into the cliff side.. At one point in the movie I fly in a parasail.. I'm attached to this harness and fly through this canyon.. it gets sort of torn and I go smashing up against this cliffside because it goes out of control, and I get hung up there, and there are these predatory creatures threatening me.."
[About the dinosaurs] "I meet all kinds of different dinosaurs.. hadrosaur, t-rex, spinosaurus, baryonyx, pteradon.. need I go on? I could go on all night [laughs].."
[About Spielberg's involvement] "[Spielberg] comes around and checks in.. he certainly was around the day when they put my life in danger.."
[About the special effects] "The animatronic machines are amazing.. they even have little pulses in their neck, and their eyes follow you around.. one guy [controls] just the eyes, one guy is just the tail, one guy is just the fingers. What's really going to be fun is to see the shots where nothing was there.. it's going to be filled in. [I'm looking forward to] seeing the huge monster that will be there."

William H. Macy
[About the plot of JP3] "The question here is: who in the right mind would go back to these islands? So they came up with a good plot -- It's a rescue expedition.. Tea Leoni's son is parasailing over the island, gets trapped on the island, and we convince Sam Neill to come back and find him.. and we do."
[Is working on a big action movie different?] "I actually think no.. it's actually the same gig every day.. it's your day that's different.. we're here for 12-14 hours, filming only a little -- the rest of the time you're just hanging out. [The pace is much slower..] We shoot one page, a page and a half a day."
[About the spino/t-rex battle] "The spinosaurus runs up to the t-rex, looking so dangerous, and spanks him mercifully.. then comes after us. The t-rex has those little stupid dumbass claws in the front.. the spinosaurus has bigger claws."
[About the special effects] "It makes you feel stupid, to react to something that isn't there, but if the movie is working, the audience doesn't look at how you're reacting.. it's amazing the magic that happens when they cut it all together."
Macy describes a scene in JP3: "Dinotopia", we call it, where we look down at all the brachiosaurs..

Trevor Morgan
[About his character] "Basically, [Eric] relates to me.. a 14 year old kid, who is very fascinated by dinosaurs, he's just a regular kid. his parents are divorced and he kinda has a mixed up life.
[How he gets to the island] "He's parasailing, and somehow the cable gets unhooked."
[About Spielberg and Johnston] "Actually, I haven't seen him so far.. he's supposed to be here this week, which is going to be fun. [It's] because he's directing AI, so he hasn't had a chance. Johnston works a lot with the actors.. he's very funny, he's a great technical director, and he's good with the actors, I find.
[About the special effects] "We've only had to do blue screen once so far (!!), but we're supposedly going to do more in the future.."

Sam Neill
[Why are you working on JP3?] "Look, it's a mystery to me too.. mostly coercion (laughs).. I was really persuaded by a number of people, including Johnston, who said the film would be different, much more exciting than anything I saw before.. and he needed me to do it..."
[What happened to his character?] "I think he's been rotting in Montana.. digging up the bones.. nothing really happened between him and the Laura Dern character, but she comes back in this.. it's a surprise.. but she's not married to me."
[About the island] "On the island.. the breeding is getting bigger and better with these animals.. it's not somewhere you'd like to be. In the first one, nothing much happened in the first hour.. but we don't have to bother with those niceties here.."
[About the filming] "It's a long shoot.. it'll be about 20-21 weeks by the time we're finished.. I'll be happy when its done"

Tea Leoni
[About her injury] "He got me [the spino] inside a plane, and shook the plane and got me a little banged up. I'm a bloody mess by the time it's over.. covered in dino-dung.."
[About the spino] "He's a fish eater, usually, but we seem to encourage a different diet in him.."
[About Spielberg] "He's on the set sometime.. he's like the grand papa.. he watches how we're treating his babies.. i think everyone is excited to impress him with the new things we've done.. I dunno if we are impressing him, but I hear he is very happy."
[About her character] "I play Amanda, who is a mother who has lost her son on the island.. and I'm on a rescue expedition with my ex-husband, Will Macy."
[About Stan Winston and SFX] "He has a dry humor.. he'll just tell you your life is in danger.. he's very funny. He says the kinks aren't all worked out yet. The growth of the CGI and the animatronics over the last 10 years are extraordinary. I know with the CGI, they've mastered how the blood runs over the dinosaur, so it looks very real now"

Jack Horner
[About his job in JP3] "I worked a lot on this one, since there is no book.. which dinosaurs there would be.. worked with Stan to make sure the robotic animals look accurate, with ILM, with Johnston during production whenever dinosaurs are on set."
[About the spino] "The new spinosaurus is very accurate.. it was found in North Africa, actually by the Germans but was destroyed during the war. Later a skeleton was discovered by the French. A big carnivore, bigger than the t-rex: the biggest skull of the t-rex was about 1 meter and half long -- the largest spinosaurus we know of has an 8 foot skull.. it was the biggest meat-eating dinosaur that walked on land."
[About the idea behind JP] "Jurassic Park is fiction.. DNA doesn't last that long, and even if you could clone the dinosaur, we don't have anything good for the plant eaters to eat. The general public, however, doesn't know that."

Stan Winston
Stan doesn't give out too much information here, but does a great job scaring the French interviewer with the animatronic raptor. According to Winston, the raptors in JP3 are "far advanced.. the other ones are puppets, he is real. Obviously you couldn't do this with a machine. We grew him, and he is a real raptor." Speaking seriously, Winston says, "From an internal standpoint, he is the most sophisticated robot, probably, that has been built. He's fast, but also very subtle and very dangerous." A few people swear they see the "feathered head crests" that have been rumored on the raptor, but I personally couldn't make any out...

News From Universal
'GapToothed' checks in with a report from Universal Studios Hollywood, saying that "It looks like JP3 is just about finished [filming] at Universal," at least for now. "Stage 12's doors are closed. Stages 24 and 25 have the sets for 'Providence' inside them. Stage 28 is completely empty. Only Stage 27 still has evidence of sets from JP3." As for the huge cliff on the backlot, it too has been almost completely dismantled -- "it's like they were never there to film!," he says. There is some remnance of the shoot, however, with a "huge helicopter painted in camouflage colors outside Stage 28 [and] the boat with the raptor cage and other boats/rafts behind the Psycho house."

Theater Owners Banking on JP3
How much do movie theater chains need Jurassic Park 3 to be a box office smash? Very, very much, according to this Reuters story, which says the "largly bankrupt" theater industry needs hit films to save some of the big chains. One analyst, who presumably doesn't know JP3 is coming out, says, "You would need 'Jurassic Park 3' and 'Titanic 2' to come out together to save this industry near-term."

January 10, 2001

Location of JP3 Controversy Finally Settled?
Okay, I give up. Isla Nublar, Isla Sorna, where the hell will JP3 take place? Chase points us to this version of today's publicity photo (See story below) on movie site Joblo.com, with an interesting caption on the bottom: "Jeter, Nivola, Leoni, Neill and Macy are passengers on an airplane that crashes on Isla Nublar." Since the text is part of the image, complete with contact info and copyright stuff, it does look pretty official...

First Publicity Still
Garth over at Dark Horizions scored the first JP3 publicity photograph, a very nice shot where you can see (From left) Michael Jeter, Alessandro Nivola, Tea Leoni (in obvious terror), Sam Neill, and William H. Macy fighting the spino in what looks to be the crashed airplane. Coolness! (Thanks Dennis, Eddie, among others)

January 9, 2001

Cinescape Poll
Not that I encourage cheating in elections, but Cinescape.com's online poll this week is asking which 2001 film you're most looking forward to, and JP3 seems to be losing. I think we all can agree who to vote for here... Go! (Thanks 'GoldblumRules')

January 8, 2001

2001 Box Office Predictions
Jon from Countingdown.com points us to this interesting USA Today article, which asks for readers opinions about various media topics, including the 2001 Box office. While for the most part, 5 of the 7 "experts" polled seem to agree that JP3 will be beaten by Harry Potter (One thinks JP3 will win, while the other thinks Pearl Harbor will take it), two of them seem to think that JP3 will make more than $100 million in its debut weekend.

January 7, 2001

Spinosaurus Photo
As a followup to his report a few weeks back, Hanns Glock sends along this shot of what appears to be the JP3 spinosaurus (a model or maquette, judging from the size), from the Austrian TV show called "Seitenblicke". It's difficult to see the strange coloring of the dinosaur Hanns was talking about (here is another kinda-blurry shot), though the spino is clearly visible.

[News from Dec 17th through Jan 6th]