Scene Filmed at IOA?
Remember the rumor from back in July that said plans were in the works to film a few of JP3's scenes at Universal's Islands of Adventure theme park in Orlando? Well, inGenNET received some info from a source today which says this may have happened:

"In early Febuary, Camp Jurassic and Triceratops Encounter were closed to public around 4pm (it was a now-crowd day anyways), it said maintenance, but there were huge floodlights installed and all the trashcans and ropes were brought out of the area before. I was talking to someone who felt very important [and] he said that they were doing some shots with rain, mainly in the Trike waiting line. [He] said there are no actors involved, and the park was running slow today, so no big deal. He was wearing a Jurassic 3 hat!"

HP Design Firm Working on JP3 Site
Some interesting news this morning about the upcoming official JP3 website (rumored to launch on May 5th) -- according to this Reuters story, top web design firm DNA Studio is working with Universal on the site. DNA is probably the best known movie-site design company, who created the amazing Harry Potter movie site and The Grinch site for Universal, among many others. This is going to be something very cool, I'm sure.

Trading Card Info
Oviraptor noticed a description of the upcoming JP3 trading cards at the official inkWorks! website, with word of a "new 3-D printing technology":

"The special effects aren't limited to the movie screen. Jurassic Park III trading cards from Inkworks will feature the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park in all-new, all 3-D trading card format. These cards will showcase a new 3-D printing technology that will add a new dimension to card collecting. The new technology allows collectors and fans to enjoy the bright, clear card images that you've come to expect from Inkworks with or without the glasses.

The 72-card base set contains Movie Action cards, Dino Field Guide cards, Behind-the-Scenes cards and much more. In addition, there will be several levels of bonus cards:

3-D Viewer: A card-sized viewer that will unleash the 3-D effect. Watch the dinosaurs appear to jump off the cards.
Jurassic Extreme: Nine die-cut cards.
Ragin' Refractors: Six prismatic foil cards.
Mega Mayhem: One foil embossed card."

A Look at a Toy
Jon from JP3HQ managed to get his paws on a "military general" action figure from Hasbro, and posted his impressions of it over at his site. He seems to like it, calling the toy a "magnificent creation". "The detail level on the figure is extraordinary -- at least (seemingly) twice the detail of the Jurassic Park/The Lost World figures," he says. "The Military General is accompanied by a T-Rex and a really cool looking gun; but we have no idea what to call it."

April 11, 2001

April 9, 2001

New Licenses
JP3HQ received a new list of some companies granted licenses to produce JP3 products. It looks like everything you could possibly want is here... backbacks, pencil cases, lunch boxes, thermoses, "adult and children's headwear" and "cold weather accessories", "adult and children's hosiery" (underwear! hurrah!), watches, belts, sunglasses, backpacks, luggage, rainwear, and purses (JP3 purse?). Save your pennies now!

JP3 Ride at IOA?
An informant over at ol' inGenNET sent in some info about the rumored JP3-themed ride at Universal's Islands of Adventure.. According to the source, a JP ride based on the "Jeep vs. T-rex" scene had been planned for awhile, but not much ever came of it. "They had this nice miniature model of the attraction for a long time now, [but it has] been collecting dust. But recently it was replaced with all kinds of JP3 stuff on it, like badges, logos, and they even changed some design of the model." The original ride was to use the technology developed for the "Spiderman Adventures" attraction.

April 7, 2001

Verreaux on Underwater Dino
Comingsoon.net is reporting the new issue of Cinescape magazine features a chat with JP3 production designer Ed Verreaux, who hints about the scene in JP3 with some sort of underwater dinosaur: "There were a couple of ideas that didn't come to fruition on the first film," Ed says. "One was the guys in the boat being attacked in the water. And that's going to happen in this one. This big meat-eater (Spoilers!) is going to show up and tip the boat over, and a bunch of harrowing stuff." (Thanks 'thafilsta')

JP3 Trailer 'Amazing'
Like we aren't having a hard enough time waiting for the release of Mummy 2 to see the JP3 trailer -- An informant over at Dark Horizons wrote in saying that the JP3 trailer was screened at a recent National Association of Theatre Owners convention, describing it simply as "amazing". (Thanks 'JurassicRaptor')

JP3 clip on eXtra Monday?
A few people dropped me a note saying Monday's edition of eXtra (airs at 7-7:30pm in most cities) will feature a look at the summer's big films, JP3 obviously among them. There's no guarantee we'll see new footage, but set your VCR's anyway! (Thanks 'Dilophosaurus' and Gregg) [Update: Another bust, Mike0081 reports they only showed old footage from JP.]

New Walking With Dinosaurs Special
Just wanted to remind everyone that a new 1 hour special from the people who brought us "Walking With Dinosaurs", called "Allosaur" will air this Sunday at 9pm on the Discovery Channel here in the US. The DVD of the show comes out Tuesday as well. (Thanks 'JPFan03' for reminding me)

April 6, 2001

"Anxious to fund research for his new theory of velociraptor intelligence, renowned paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) is persuaded by a wealthy adventurer (William H. Macy) and his wife (Tea Leoni) to accompany them on an aerial tour of Isla Sorna. This infamous island, once InGen's site B, has become both a primordial breeding ground for John Hammond's magnificent creations and a magnet for thrill-seekers eager to encounter them.

When a tragic accident maroons the party of seven, Grant discovers the true reason his deceptive hosts have invited him along. In their perilous attempt to escape with their lives, the dwindling group encounters terrifying new creatures undisclosed by InGen, and Grant is forced to learn the dreadful implications of his raptor intelligence theory firsthand."

April 5, 2001

I talked to Horner yesterday at CMU, and he was very closed mouth on the subject of JP3 as a number of people brought it up. He mentioned the feathered headgear of the raptors and how they are going to be more bird-like, for instance the wrist will fold back like a chicken's. I asked him if any new dinosaurs were to be expected and he said the Spinosaurus, (which he explained had a 8 foot long head and sail) and others. I asked what others and he told me to go see the movie and then laughed. He talked about working with Spielberg and how great it was because Spielberg is 'fantastic' but he would never work in show business because 'it was the same thing over and over again.' he said, (and I will just paraphrase what he said here,) "For the movies Jurassic park, the lost World and JP3 I was a technical adviser on the appearance and actions of the dinosaurs. I had some say in what they did, I even got one to eat a lawyer, (laughs), in the next one its a (Spoiler!!) Graduate Student! (laughs) In TLW you may have noticed a paleontologist in the movie that wore a big straw hat and had a beard...this character was based off a real paleontologist that often disagrees with me ... I had him eaten too! (laughs)" Jack had a nice slide of a raptor with a feather head-thing that looks like the photos we've seen, the arms were very bird like.

AOL to buy Dreamworks?
Not really JP3-related, but interesting nonetheless, this story from TheStreet.com is reporting media-giant AOL Time Warner is "in talks" to buy Dreamworks SKG. I'm just speculating here, but this deal may be bad for us JP fans, as a deal between AOL/Dreamworks would most likely sever the ties between Dreamworks/Universal, and therefore may prohibit Spielberg from working on future JP movies. I suppose we shall see..

April 3, 2001

Hasbro Toys Coming Soon, Says Rep.
Dan J. sent a message to a representite at Hasbro, who said that we should expect stores across the US to begin receiving JP3 products very soon. "The items are shipping this month and may be in stores before the end of April," the rep said. "There are [also] product dates scheduled through the Spring/Summer."

Crew T-Shirt #2
Mr. Ebay, Gregg Truscott, points us to this new auction, said to be an official JP3 crew t-shirt, this one made for the special effects crew. The back features this very cool drawing (if a bit wrinkled) of a feathered raptor eating... well.. something. The auction closes on Saturday.

Kodak and JP3
Countingdown.com received some info about Kodak's involvement with Universal's upcoming summer releases, and as expected the company will have some sort of tie-in to JP3. You'll remember Kodak was heavivly involved with promoting TLW, with contests, special film which included a shot of a T-rex as a bonus photo, etc. "[Promotions] will begin two weeks before JP3 opens," says a Universal source. "Kodak is our partner on 'Mummy' and 'Jurassic', so we'll be doing lots of cross promotions in grocery chains." (Thanks JP3HQ).

April 1, 2001

I'm not sure how long it is (to excited to think about it!) but it was...just...FANTASTIC! I wasn't surprised that is was pretty close to the ShoWest description. It starts with some shots of the characters (quite a bit like TLW trailer), and then moves on to the GOOD stuff! Some ILM magic here: quick cuts of Spino (a couple are so fast it's hard to tell, but I'm sure one WAS a Carnotaur!), but there's a lot of Stan Winston's animatronics in glorious close-up (Spino/Rex chomping, Raptors rearing)! Speaking of Raptors, don't worry about the feathers - they're a very cool (at the least bit, interesting) addition, but not much is made of them. The good (if not best) thing about it is, that it doesn't show TOO much. It instead wets our appetite for more, like The Mummy Returns trailer. I'm ecstatic! Anyway, it ends with the line from ShoWest [Grant: 'This looks like some sort of bird cage" Leoni: "A bird cage for what?"], with a couple awe-inspiring Pterandon shots. They're beautiful creatures! But also, I think they're gonna be pretty "Jaws"-like in they're attacks. There's a lot of running, screaming, jumping - and a very Speilbergian touch: scene's of people looking -- There's not much more to say, except that I can't wait an entire month to see it again!

Macy Talks JP3
JP3 star William H. Macy talked to E! Online, saying very little about JP3, but worth mentioning anyway. ""I've never done one of these [big-budget, special-effects features], and I've always wanted to--it's Hollywood at its pinnacle," Macy said. "[My son] gets trapped on one of these dinosaur-riddled islands, the plane touches down, someone gets eaten and we've been running ever since."

Shooting Script!
Instead of posting scene descriptions one by one, Bob from Hawaii Movie Tours has thankfully compiled the whole lot of them into one big file, and here it is: the JP3 Official Shooting Script! Take a look!

March 29, 2001

Scene Descriptions
Looks like Bob from Hawaii Movie Tours is up to his old tricks again, as he dropped me a line to say that he posted several new short desciptions of scenes from his JP3 shooting script on his site. Here's a few, but beware -- major spoilers abound!

• "The group pushes through the underbrush and comes upon a T-rex. A spino chases the group through the jungle, [and] they lose him."
• "A pteranodon grabs Eric. The group watches helplessly as Eric is carried away. Everyone scrambles to get Eric. Grant and Amanda are separated from Paul by a pteranodon. Grant and Amanda continue to battle."
• "The group will witness the mother of all Dinosaur battles. Plate shots for the Dino battle are shot."
• "At the Ingen Compound, Equipment Yard - Raptors try to trap the group. Paul trips, Amanda throws hexnuts at the Raptors."
• "At the Dinosaur Kennel - the group tries to trap a raptor, the raptor cries for help, the group runs."
• "The group is on the barge at night, [and] a Spino attacks. The group is tossed from the barge and are underwater during attack. The Spino takes off into jungle. The group gets back on barge and Grant calls Ellie."

March 26, 2001

More Merchandise on Ebay
Several new interesting JP3-related auctions on Ebay, including four varieties of a JP3 Bop Bag (I used to go through these things like crazy when I was a kid because of one too many elbow drops from off my bed...). There's the "Reef Raptor" (What's a Reef Raptor?), "Spino", "Big Lizard", and "T-Rex". Another set of auctions includes this JP3 Crew Hat and Crew T-shirt (pic), with a cartoon t-rex and the caption "Never Look Back!" on the back. According to the description of this item, the shirt was created by Sam Neill and given to the crew as a Christmas gift. "[The back shows] Sam in the director's chair, surrounded by ... [the] director, producer and DP." (Thanks 'DinahSaur14' and Gregg Truscott)

Nivola at the Oscars
'JurassicRaptor' noticed JP3 star Alessadro Nivola was at the Oscar's last night (Go Gladiator!) as Julia Stiles date, and managed to get a plug in for JP3 during the red carpet interviews. He didn't really add anything new, but hinted that there would be a "lot" of new dinosaurs in the film.

More on the Trading Cards
'RaPTOR705' was lucky enough to stop by the inkWorks! booth at the "Fort Washington Hobby Show" in Pennsylvania this weekend and gathered some info on the upcoming JP3 trading cards. According to the people at the booth, the cards will appear about two weeks before the film comes out. "They had an awesome sign with the T-rex head, a Pteranodon flying above the T-rex head, and a Raptor right next to the JP3 sign."

March 25, 2001

Johnston on JP3 Running Time, Location
I asked Joe Johnston a few days back if there was any truth to the rumor that the running time of JP3 would be 95 minutes (Story), who responded saying, that, as I suspected, there is "no official running time yet", as the film is still being assembled in post-production. Of course, he didn't completely deny the 95 minute thing, so I guess we shall see. To finally put the island debate to rest, Joe also confirmed that the film takes place on "Isla Sorna and multiple mainland locations."

Another JP3 Trading Card
Another inkWorks! trading card has been spotted by JP3HQ, this one featuring the soon-to-be-infamous spinosaur. In case you were wondering (I was), inkworks! is an up-and-coming trading card company which created the popular Simpsons card set in the past.

March 24, 2001

JP3 NASCAR July 7th
JP3HQ received some information on when we'll see the new Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart JP3 themed NASCAR's on the track -- they will be raced on July 7th in Daytona, FL. The JP3-themed "dragbike" will be will be driven by Antron Brown at Colorado July 19-22, and the "dragsters" will be driven by Frank Pedregon and Del Worsham in Colorado on those dates as well.

[News from March 8th through March 21th]