JP3/POTA Battle
After holding onto the 25th spot on the box office charts for two weeks, JP3 and POTA switched places this weekend, with the apes edging out the dinos by a little more than $9,000. JP3 is still beating it in total gross, however, with JP3's total at $180.2 million. Also worth mentioning is JP3 has broken onto the Top 50 All-Time box office chart, sitting precariously at #50, right under "Mission: Impossible". (Thanks Scott and 'JP Animal Control')

Dinos in Australia
A bit unrelated news, site regular 'Post Grant' wanted me to mention that if anyone happens to be in the land down under, stop by the "Musuem of Western Australia" (in Perth) through February 2002 for a massive exhibit of over "40 high latitude dinosaur specimines" called "Dinosaurs of Darkness". And look for Mr. Post Grant while you're there -- he'll be the one dressed like Dr. Alan Grant giving tours.

October 20, 2001

Episode 2 Uses JP3 CGI Models
It's a little known fact that ILM likes to use modified CGI models in other projects -- for Star Wars: SE, for instance, ILM used the JP Brachiosaur model for the Ronto creature. Now it looks like they're doing it again, according to TheForce.net. "Other dinosaurs from Jurassic Park are going to be turned into background creatures on Geonasis [a planet in Episode 2], and the pterodactyls from Jurassic Park 3 are being reworked into 'flying whales'... Mainly the wing movements and flight patters are the same with the model itself being overhauled to a greater degree." (Thanks 'Billy_Brennan')

October 18, 2001

A Few DVD Details
A few tid-bits of information on the content of the upcoming JP3 DVD can be found at the British Board of Film Classification, of all places, according to Tony. Apparently the BBFC rates all special features on DVD's, and their database is now being updated with some preliminary details on the running times and titles of the video we might see on the DVD. Here's what they have so far:

• "Behind the Scenes" (4:22): Untitled (1:46), Raptor's Attack Udesky (0:57), The Lake (1:37)
• "Picture Gallery" (2:49).
• "Dinosaur Turntables" (5:30): Corythosaurus (:22), Parasaurolophus (:22), Brachiosaurus (:22), Velociraptor (:34), Ankylosaurus (:22), Stegosaurus (:26), Triceratops (:22), Tyrannosaurus (:41), Pteranodon (:33), Compsognathus (:22), Spinosaurus (:34), Billy Brennan (:22)

Win a Trip to Stan Winston Studios
There's a no-purchase-necessary contest over at HBO.com (you must be 18 to enter) where one lucky person can win a 4 day/3 night trip to LA to visit special effects guru Stan Winston's famous studios. The contest is promoting Cinemax's "Creature Features" series of original movies airing this month on the cable network -- four scary films with SFX done by Stan Winston Studio. There are two new films left in the series, airing tonight and next Thursday.

October 15, 2001

Winston Designs New "Geoffrey"
The newest creature to come out of Stan Winston's monster shop isn't a terrifying t-rex or spinosaurs: It's a new version of Geoffrey, the towering, talking giraffe spokes-thing for Toys 'R' Us , according to this press release. The new Geoffrey, which debuts in commercials starting this week, is an animatronic creature "16 feet tall and operated by four master puppeteer" with "more points of motion than any other creature Winston has created, including the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park." Scary.

Box Office Update
Well, the news flow is slowing down recently, but JP3 is still raking in the dough around the world and here at home. According to Glen, JP3 has taken in a little over $177 million overseas. Back in the U.S., the film grossed a measly $214,525 this weekend (#25), though the big news is that it passed the $180 million mark, sitting at $180,095,970. (Thanks 'JP Animal Control')

'Dinotopia' Scheduled For April 28
Not JP-related per se, but dino fans in general will surely want to tune in to ABC starting April 28th for director Marco Brambilla's epic 6-hour miniseries based on the popular "Dinotopia" series of books by James Gurney, according to Army Archerd. The $85 million series will apparently have "four times the CGI of Jurassic Park", and be backed by a gigantic marketing campaign starting next month. The story follows a man and his son who wash up on a strange island inhabited by peaceful dinosaurs.

Jeb Bush Backs JP
While not rigging elections, Florida Governor Jeb Bush apparently likes riding the JP Ride at Universal Studios's Islands of Adventure... Actually, he is pictured here filming a public service announcement urging people to return to theme parks following the terrorist attacks of September 11th.

October 4, 2001

To capture the more harrowing aspects of the [plane] crash, ILM blended first-unit live-action with miniature elements created by the model shop. This required the shooting of three different eleven-foot-long quarter-scale Beech King Twin-Turboprop passenger planes... and crashing them into a 60-by-100-foot miniature jungle set on the ILM stage. Mounted to a special rig... the airplane model traveled at 40 miles per hour toward the jungle miniature, colliding with breakaway branches and trees in its path.

The scene in which the spinosaur assaults the plane in the treetops was actually the first one shot with the big Winston animatronic. "We brought the spino in," Tim Nordella recalled, "but we hadn't had a lot of time to work with it. It always takes a while to get to know a character of this size. So the first few days of filming were kind of awkward. The character didn't move or flow correctly. It was a learning curve." The actors also had to learn to interact with the massive model. "Tea Leoni really didn't like the spino at all. She was a big chicken. I would bring the character up to her and she'd step back every time. Bill Macy, though, loved it! There was one scene where he was up in the tree standing real close to the spino, and I came down very fast. The first time he jumped back; but by the second time, he was sparring wit it, having a good time."

The [t-rex vs. spino] battle presented some unique problems for the animation teams -- exacerbated by the fight's concept not being finalized until very late in the production schedule. "We had just seven weeks to complete 10 very complex shots," said Dan Taylor. "The longest shot in the sequence consisted of the T-rex and the spino exchanging blows. At this point in the fight, Joe definitely wanted the audience to know that one of the dinos wasn't going to come out of this fight alive. We created some initial animation blocking: but when Joe looked at that, he felt that it looked more like dogs playing than two animals engaged in a fight to the death." The animation team went back to reference footage." We discovered that when wild animals are engaged in a real fight, they are not concerned with looking good or demonstrating macho ego. Its all about survival. In a real fight, if an animal has a chance to get out, he'll usually take it."

With only three weeks left in the schedule, Taylor was forced to take a somewhat unorthodox approach to the animation, assembling a team of ten animators... to work on this one shot. "Each of the animators did quick-and-dirty animaatics of fighting actions that we felt would be appropriate," recalled Taylor. "Then I got together with Joe and we edited together specific actions that we liked, making sure that they would fit into the established shot length. After the edit was complete, we combined the animation files and roughed in the transitions between the chosen bits of action."

First Look at JP3 DVD
Glen kindly sends along some promotional materials for the JP3 DVD, provided to people in the entertainment industry, and now, you! Most of it is marketing fluff for video store people, like this page promising a "Gigantic In-store Presence!", though we also get a look at what could be the JP3 menu screens. Judging by the crudeness of some of these images, they are probably not final (I've heard from Universal in recent days that the JP3 DVD is not yet completed), though it's probably safe to say that the design of the JP3 menus will match those of last year's JP and TLW DVD's:

October 3, 2001

Dalva Talks JP3 Editing
'Embryo' sends along this very nice interview with JP3 editor Robert Dalva on EditorsNet.com, the first time we've heard from this important member of JP3's crew. Dalva talks about his history in Hollywood, his relationship with Johnston (this was the third time he served as Joe's editor), and probably most interesting, about the brevity of JP3:

"It was not a long script to begin with. Some scenes became shorter than they were written and some scenes became much longer, because the action was more complicated. Joe and I laugh about it, because there are no scenes that were left out that you could put on a DVD. There are a few scenes that we took a fourth of the dialogue out of, but we felt it was the right thing to do. A lot of critics mentioned how short the movie is, but they couldn't explain why they mentioned it. It's a weird criticism because I think a lot of movies are way too long. When I was kid, most movies were 90 minutes. A two-hour movie was considered long; three hours, rare. And they often had an intermission!"

Johnston On JP4
Comingsoon.net is reporting that according to Empire Magazine, JP3 director Joe Johnston might consider doing JP4.. after a break. "I think at this point it would depend on the story, which it always does," he said. "But Steven [Spielberg] was right, these movies are hard to make. Before he said that I knew intellectually what he was talking about. But now I've experienced it first hand. I feel I would really wanna see someone else have as much fun as I have had the last two years." ComingSoon.net does not mention which issue of the magazine this interview was from, so its very possible this is an old interview. (Thanks Ryan)

JPAftermath Back
Steve wanted me to let everyone know that his site, JP Aftermath, is back in operation after some server problems. Speaking of server problems, you may have noticed the "Server Too Busy" message popping up here every so often -- I'm looking into the problem and hopefully will have that fixed soon. The messenger is offline until then.

September 29, 2001

3rd GBA Game Changes Name Again?
'Drakk' noticed the third JP3-themed game for the new Gameboy Advance system, which was originally called "Primal Fear", then re-named "Island Attack", has been once again re-titled "Survive Prehistory" on Amazon (Presumably the gameplay is still the same: It is supposed to be some sort of isometric action-adventure title). The release date of the third game also looks like its been pushed up two days, to 11/22.

Neill Hosts 'Hyperspace' on TLC
Sam Neill fans take note: the JP3 star will be hosting "Hyperspace", a new three-part special on the beginnings of our solar system, premiereing at 8pm (ET) next Sunday, October 7th, on The Learning Channel. I just saw the commercial, and it looks pretty darn cool. (Thanks Mike)

[News from September 4th through September 24th]