What Could Have Been / Jurassic Park

Concept art for Jurassic Park (1993) of the river boat sequence from the novel, which did not make it into the final film.

Jurassic Park

• The first script draft of the film was written by Michael Crichton himself, and unsurprisingly followed the novel's story much more closely. The main difference here was how Hammond died differed considerably from the novel, which is noted below.
• Samuel L. Jackson was supposed to fly to Hawaii to film Arnold's death scene, but a hurricane destroyed the set, and the scene had to be scrapped. He regrets this because he was physically chased by them and killed, and he really wanted to do it. Watch this clip explaining how his death scene would have played out.
• Richard Donner, Tim Burton and Joe Dante were all considered to direct when studios had a bidding war for the material (Donner would have made the film for Columbia Pictures, Burton at Warner Bros. and Dante at 20th Century Fox). James Cameron also stated the rights were bought hours before his bid. In the end, Universal and Spielberg won out since Spielberg was Crichton's first choice to direct (and the studio used the upcoming Schindler's List, which Spielberg had been lobbying to direct, as incentive). But imagine how dark Burton's and Dante's versions would have been. (Cameron stated his version would be much more violent, but agreed that wouldn't exactly be better as "Dinosaurs are for 8-year-olds. We can all enjoy it, too, but kids get dinosaurs and they should not have been excluded for that"). Cameron's version would have seen Arnold Schwarzenegger as Grant, Bill Paxton as Malcolm, and Charlton Heston as Hammond.
• Kevin Costner, Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, William Hurt, Dennis Quaid, Kurt Russell and Robin Williams were all considered for Alan Grant.
• Christina Applegate, Juliette Binoche, Sandra Bullock, Jamie Lee Curtis, Joan Cusack, Geena Davis, Sherilyn Fenn, Bridget Fonda, Jodie Foster, Heather Graham, Jennifer Grey, Linda Hamilton, Daryl Hannah, Nicole Kidman, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michelle Pfeiffer, Ally Sheedy, Sigourney Weaver, Robin Wright, and Renée Zellweger, were considered for Ellie Sattler. Sandra Bullock, Melanie Griffith, Teri Hatcher, Helen Hunt, Elizabeth Hurley, Juliette Lewis, Julianne Moore, Gwyneth Paltrow, Uma Thurman, and Debra Winger tested for the role. (Moore got to be in the sequel).
• Bruce Campbell, Jim Carrey, Ted Danson, Johnny Depp, Steve Guttenberg. Michael Keaton and Michael J. Fox were considered for Ian Malcolm. (Carrey was apparently a very close second choice.)
• Sean Connery turned down the role of John Hammond. Marlon Brando, Clint Eastwood, John Forsythe and Ian Bannen were also considered.
• Christina Ricci auditioned for Lex. Claire Danes was also considered.
• Jake Gyllenhaal was considered for Tim.
• Brian Cox was interviewed for Robert Muldoon. Bob Hoskins, Jeffrey Jones, and Geoffrey Rush were also considered.
• James Woods was considered for Donald Gennaro.
• Danny Glover was considered for Ray Arnold.
• Charlie Sheen was considered for Dennis Nedry.
• The original plan was to create the dinosaurs using massive animatronics like in the Kongfrontation ride, but that was too expensive. Then Spielberg opted to primarily use Phil Tippett's "go motion" (stop motion with added motion blur) along with Stan Winston animatronics for when physically present and ILM digital effects for distant shots. Tippet had already done tests when ILM made a demo showing that computer-generated dinosaurs were feasible and convincible enough, and this signed the death knell of stop motion as a special effect in live-action films. (Tippet remained as a supervisor, and his crew even developed "Dinosaur Input Devices" models which allowed to animate the digital characters like stop motion puppets)
• The raptors were initially going to be properly identified as Deinonychus, as shown in concept art by Mark "Crash" McCreery and Mark Hallett, but were re-identified as Velociraptor later in production.
• Speaking on stage at a London screening, David Koepp said of working on the film:

  The problem I encountered, and I still encounter today when I work with Steven, is his movies are so influential, you have a tendency to create something you think he'll like. I kind of wanted to just type for him. You have to let that go. He doesn't need acolytes, he needs collaborators. The opening scene in my first draft was at a hospital in Costa Rica where somebody's flown in on a helicopter and said it's a terrible construction accident. I wrote a really good scene where this ER doctor looks at this guy, a person's who's been ripped to shreds and says "This is not a construction accident". He said "I love your opening I can't do it though, because I feel like I already did it." I said "What? When?" He said, "Yeah, it's in Jaws". I said "Oh yeah, right! I love that!"' That's a peril. You've got to write stuff you think is great, then he brings his stuff to it, rather than you trying to think ahead and write what you think he would want.

  • The scene described would have been a direct adaptation of the novel's prologue; the film instead opens on the accident responsible for the hospital visit.
• The crew actually considered including feathered dinosaurs under the paleontologists' suggestions, but it was decided not to due to controversy and technological difficulties (despite CGI birds being doable at the time).
• One scene that was filmed but cut from the final film had Hammond explaining to the other guests that Tim and Lex's parents were getting divorced, so he invited them to the park before it was finished to try and cheer them up. This story point was later reused for Zach and Gray in Jurassic World, although many viewers complained that it was a pointless addition that added nothing to the story, showing that sometimes it can be good that scenes get cut.
• Hammond was originally going to be killed off, just like his book counterpart. How he was going to be killed varied - in Crichton's first version of the script, Hammond is in the wrecked visitor center when he is startled by the twitch of a dead Velociraptor, falls into the collapsed scaffolding behind him, and then gets swarmed by compies. In Crichton's last draft, Hammond pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to save his grandkids from a Velociraptor in the Visitor’s Center; distracting the dinosaur away from them by turning on the park’s tour introduction video and getting mauled to death offscreen, his own recorded voice ironically welcoming visitors to Jurassic Park over his dying screams. In the next version of the script (which was not written by Crichton), Hammond is escaping from the park with an egg incubator only to hear screams for help while in the control room. Opening the door, he finds a raptor outside, drops the incubator, and is attacked by the raptor, Later, Grant finds Hammond on the verge of death, who tells Grant that he was looking forward to working with him, then dies as a baby Triceratops hatches from one of the incubator eggs. In other versions, Hammond just got left on the island to die, either on purpose or by accident. Then David Koepp joined the project and scrapped the whole idea of Hammond dying.
• A scene of Tim and Lex riding a baby Triceratops was planned late into production (appearing in the same scene as Ellie investing the sick adult Triceratops), but it was eventually scrapped despite extensive work done on a rideable Triceratops animatronic (seen here) simply because it didn't make sense for the tone and flow of the story (it also wasn't a scene in the novel). The prop later appeared very briefly in The Lost World, however.
• The river rafting scene from the novel was conceptualized and appeared in more than one draft of the film, but it was scrapped in the final cut because the screenwriter didn't think it added anything meaningful to the story and it would've been repetitive for the characters to be attacked by the Tyrannosaurus so many times.
• The scene of Grant, Ellie, and the other palaeontologists digging up the raptor fossils went on for a bit longer, setting up the romantic relationship between the two, some more raptor tidbits (including a line mentioning them hunting Tenontosaurus, further establishing that the so-called Velociraptor are supposed to be Deinonychus), and more establishing how Grant (initially) doesn't like kids.
• It was recently revealed by Kathleen Kennedy that the Tyrannosaurus in the first film was originally going to die about halfway through the movie. When they got to the point that they were going to film that scene, Spielberg decided against it.
• In the script and go-motion animated storyboard, Malcolm was originally going to flee in terror as the Tyrannosaurus attacked, but Goldblum didn't like how cowardly this made his character and it was changed to him being a foolhardy hero instead, drawing the dinosaur's attention with another flare, trying to copy Grant. The comic book adaptation kept this version of the scene.
• An earlier version of the script was written by Malia Scotch Marmo, whom had written the screenplay for Spielberg's earlier film Hook. This version was slightly Lighter and Softer than the final film and had a more religious undertone, with Hammond seeing himself as more of a God-like figure and the park as his Garden of Eden. This is one of the scripts where Hammond died at the end, willingly staying behind on the island only to trip while walking down a hill, knock himself out, and drown in a puddle. The film ends with a mosquito landing on him as a Bookend.
  • Other differences included the fact that Malcolm was not in this version, the Tyrannosaurus did not rescue Grant, Ellie, and the kids from the raptors at the end (rather, Grant uses the T. rex skeleton in the lobby to crush the last raptor), instead it attacked the helicopter as they were leaving the island, and all the dinosaurs were suffering from fatal viral infections due to contamination from mosquito DNA, which was meant to be the reason why the Triceratops was sick in this version (there was no frog DNA twist in this version either).
• It's been said subsequently that the reason the Dilophosaurus has a frill (present neither in the novel or the real animal), was because of a discussion between art director Rick Carter and concept artist John Gurche about a scene where two male Dilophosaurus use some sort of fleshy display structure to intimidate one another, which would set up a later scene where Dr. Grant scares off a Dilophosaurus with a colourful umbrella that resembles the display structure (concept art also shows an umbrella resembling a Dilophosaurus being used to scare off a Velociraptor). The scene never made it past brainstorming, but the anatomical feature made it into the final film regardless.
• An early design for the raptor pen has it with a thatched roof over top. This is a minor detail that was omitted, but this design can nonetheless be seen projected on the background wall during the scene where the characters are talking over lunch.
• Some concept art of the Visitor Center shows that the sauropod fossil (identified as Alamosaurus in supplementary material) shown in combat with the Tyrannosaurus was originally designed as a Stegosaurus. Possibly it was changed into Alamosaurus to avoid anachronism.
• Some concept art and scripts show and describe further sequences of Grant and the kids wandering through the park which did not make it into the final film, such as climbing through volcanic lava fields, through forests trampled flat by herds of dinosaurs, encountering baby herbivorous dinosaurs (including the mentioned baby Triceratops), and the aforementioned river boat sequence.
• Numerous wildly varying versions of the park's logo were conceptualized, such as having the words printed across a pterosaur's outstretched wings, ones with silhouettes of dinosaurs on top of the words, and several which had the subtitle "They're Real!" or "They Are Real".

The Lost World

• Once Steven Spielberg was confirmed as director, he insisted on expanding the T. rex's final rampage in San Diego. It is unclear if the movie would even have a final act in the continent if he didn't direct, or the captured rex was just going to be a Sequel Hook. Had he chosen to adhere to the script as it was written at this point, the film would have ended similarly to the novel, with Ludlow being killed by the rexes, the characters escaping the island soon after, and closing with a funeral for John Hammond.
• Originally, Ajay and some of the InGen men survived the raptors' attack and made it to the abandoned city, where they were killed by Pteranodons. They survived long enough to call for a helicopter that was attacked and brought down as well. Technical challenges reduced the Pteranodons' role to a cameo in the end, but there was at least one animatronic head built (with pycnofibres, in contrast to the Pteranodon in later films). The helicopter attack by Pteranodon was later incorporated into Jurassic World.
  • In this same script, Tembo would've shot and killed a raptor that was just about to pounce on Malcolm and Kelly in the climax, saving their lives, there was an additional character in Hammond's crew, a paleontologist named Juttson who would've been the protagonists' counterpart to Burke, Malcolm was going to use a cane throughout the film because of his leg injury in the previous movie, and the movie would've ended with Hammond's funeral instead of the T. rex rampage.
• In early drafts of the script, Lex and Tim were involved for much longer. Some even had them going back to the park and encountering the dinosaurs again.
• The ending with the Tyrannosaurus rex attacking San Diego was not in the initial script, and was added to the movie from an idea for a potential third movie about dinosaurs attacking the mainland.
• Spielberg originally approached Juliette Binoche about playing the role of Sarah Harding. She supposedly replied that she would appear in the movie only if she could "play the dinosaur". Julia Roberts was also considered.
• Gary Oldman was offered the role of Peter Ludlow, but wasn't available.
• The Pteranodon were originally going to be P. sternbergi (nowadays known as Geosternbergia) rather than P. logiceps as in the film. And the Mamenchisaurus during the stampede were initially going to be Apatosaurus (although Mamenchisaurus was still going to be in the film, as two males fighting). The Mamenchisaurus was also initially going to be changed to Seismosaurus (now Diplodocus hallorum) during mid-production, hence the sauropod's more diplodocid-like appearance.
• Spielberg initially intended for Jurassic Park cinematographer Dean Cundey to return for Lost World; however, Cundey was busy directing Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves. As a result, Spielberg instead hired his Schindler's List cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, who would go on to become the cinematographer on all of Spielberg's projects since as of 2021.
• The movie was intended to open with a Japanese fishing trawler hooking up the rotting carcass of a Parasaurolophus (à la Zuiyo-maru). A prop was made, but the scene went un-filmed, and the prop was repurposed as one of the carcasses in the T. rex nest and then repainted and used as the body the Tyrannosaurus was eating in Jurassic Park III.
• The scene with the Tyrannosaurus buck in the suburban backyard was supposed to go on for slightly longer, with the T. rex smashing its head through the window, before losing interest and leaving. The scene was filmed, but ended up being cut.
• There were a few more brief scenes filmed that set up the personalities and relationships of Malcolm and the three other members of Hammond's expedition party, one before the encounter with Sarah and the Stegosaurus herd, one just afterwards, and one in the tent with Malcolm asking Kelly if he should marry Sarah.
• There was one scene deleted late in production with Ludlow and Tembo having a conversation after having captured the T. rex baby that would've further fleshed out both their characters. Startled by the sound of some animal scampering off in the distance, an intoxicated Ludlow would've tripped, landed on the baby tyrannosaur, and broke its leg, explaining how it got that injury in the final film.
• One scene that was storyboarded but not filmed was the Tyrannosaurus parents attacking Eddie's high-hide. It ultimately gets repurposed for the Giganootosaurus's attack on the observation tower in Dominion.
• There were two major deleted scenes that were filmed, but ended up on the cutting room floor before the final film and were only included in the DVD extras:
  • One scene involved Ludlow in a meeting with the InGen executives immediately following the opening scene of the girl being attacked by the Compsognathus, as he spells out how much money the company has lost following lawsuits, wrongful death settlements, and keeping the islands a secret from the media. Ludlow and the executives then vote unanimously to remove Hammond as the company's CEO in order to exploit the dinosaurs for profit. This scene also states the park facilities "organic and inorganic" on Isla Nublar were "disposed of", meaning the scene is rendered non-canon by the existence of Jurassic World, which shows the buildings were simply abandoned and the old dinosaurs were recaptured.
  • Another scene introduces Tembo and Ajay before they get to Isla Sorna. In it, Tembo punches out a drunken patron who was harassing a waitress (with one hand tied behind his back at that), before he admits that he's bored with life and retired after having hunted every dangerous animal in the world, asking Ajay what InGen could possibly offer on their expedition that would interest him. It's speculated that this scene may have been cut because it made Tembo too likeable despite being one of the film's antagonists.
    • Interestingly, these scenes were re-instated when the film aired on the Fox network, with commercials even touting it as containing "extended footage".

Jurassic Park 3

• A Baryonyx◊ had Spinosaurus' role in the original script. This was referenced in-movie. Billy guesses the dinosaur that attacked the plane is a Baryonyx, but Grant corrects him, saying Baryonyx didn't have that impressive sail on the back. Also an amusing bit in this scene as Billy first guesses Suchomimus, another relative of Spinosaurus that reached 31-36 feet in length, but Grant tells him to think bigger which is when he says Baryonyx, which only grew to 25-an estimate of 33 feet.
• In the initial script, Ben Hildebrand was originally going to be shown being killed by the Velociraptor as footage on Eric's camcorder.
• The ending was changed a lot; in the original script, the Spinosaurus was attacked by raptors and killed at the end and they also considered having the Spinosaurus attack the marines.
• One of the first scripts was about a group of teens stranded in the island and being eaten one by one. It was described as Friends with dinosaurs... and quickly dropped because the producers realized how crappy it sounded. However, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous would later have a similar plot, with a group of kids stranded on Isla Nublar.
• The film's second script involved Pteranodons escaping from Isla Sorna and causing a spate of mysterious killings on the mainland, which was to be investigated by Alan Grant and a number of other characters including Billy Brennan, a naturalist named Simone, a tough military attaché, wealthy Paul Roby, Roby's teenage son Miles, and the mercenary Cooper (who played a bigger role). Grant's group crash-lands on the island, while a parallel investigation is being carried out on the mainland. The aviary sequence and laboratory set piece were initially much longer and more complex, including Velociraptor stealthily entering the hatchery as the team spends the night there. Sets, costumes, and props were built for this version, but the script thrown out only five weeks before filming, and the props and sets were reused for completely different scenes.
• Steven Spielberg initially devised a story idea which involved Grant living on one of InGen's islands to study dinosaurs. Because he was not allowed in for research, he was living in a tree like Robinson Crusoe. However, Joe Johnston rejected the idea because he couldn't imagine Dr. Grant returning to any island inhabited by dinosaurs after the events of the first film.
• The infamous T. rex vs Spinosaurus fight was originally much longer and more even, but the Spinosaurus animatronic was a newer model and far more powerful than the T. rex one, which was a repurposed one from the previous film. They underestimated exactly how powerful the machine was and during the fight a swipe from it decapitated the T. rex animatronic in a single swipe, damaging it beyond repair. As a result, the battle had to be cut severely shorter than intended.
• Steve Buscemi, Tony Shalhoub and Stellan Skarsgård were considered for Cooper.
• Stephen Sommers was in the running to direct when Spielberg declined to return to the director's chair.
• John Williams was originally approached to compose the score but was busy working on A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and recommended Don Davis instead.
• The Ceratosaurus was originally written as being Carnotaurus; it was possibly changed because it was easier to pass off a modified Tyrannosaurus CG model as a Ceratosaurus instead of making a whole new Carnotaurus model for a scene that only lasts about twenty seconds.
• Ouranosaurus was depicted in some concept art among the dinosaurs the protagonists encountered while boating down the river, and concept art was made showing a Mosasaurus breeding tank.

World

• Josh Brolin was offered the role of Owen Brady.
• One of the earliest versions of the film would involve dinosaurs overpopulating the Five Deaths and starting to migrate to the Costa Rican mainland, and Grant and Malcolm would team up once again to investigate another InGen owned island infested with dinosaurs and find a way to stop them from eventually re-taking the planet. Raptors on the mainland is a scenario described at the beginning and end of the original novel.
• A later draft involved a mercenary being sent by Hammond to retrieve the shaving cream can from the first film to clone more dinosaurs (apparently retconning the line in the first film that said the canister could only preserve the embryos for 36 hours). This version involved a rival corporation to InGen that had taken control of Isla Nublar and cloned a pack of Deinonychus, that had been spliced with human and canine DNA to better obey commands, in order to fight drug lords and terrorists. The film begins with a Pteranodon attack on a Little League game, has a climax involving armoured dinosaurs (that is, dinosaurs wearing metal armour) descending in parachutes, and features a fictional dinosaur (but presented as real, unlike the Indominus) known as the "Excavaraptor" which had huge claws for burrowing.
• Another idea that derived from the previous idea's "raptors with human DNA" would've involve genetically-engineered dinosaur Half-Human Hybrid mercenaries who had Arm Cannons (the type where the arm IS a cannon), although this idea did not seem to have made it past conceptualization.
• Katashi Hamada was initially going to be a more developed and prominent character, being sort of this film's version of Muldoon.
• Indominus rex was originally going to be called Diabolus rex.
• Zara's death was not only going to go to a different character, but it was also (if you can believe it) even more disturbing than in the final product. In one storyboard, it was going to go to a park ranger who tried to save Zach and Gray. Later, it would go to a news reporter catching the whole incident on camera before the angry pterosaurs attack his helicopter. In both versions, the person is not just in the Mosasaurus' mouth when he gets eaten, but his torso is hanging out of the side. And to make matters even worse, the Mosasaurus then drags the bloody human body into a nearby aquarium, wherein a horrified family gets to see everything.
• A scene that was filmed and appears in a few commercials has Claire smearing dinosaur poop on herself while she's out in the park with Owen looking for Zach and Gray after Owen tells her it'll mask her scent. The scene was probably cut for being way too disgusting.
• The introduction, according to storyboards, was initially going to show more of the park and its many attractions. Among these attractions would have included a treetop observatory wherein people could watch Brachiosaurus herds, a gondola lift in the Aviary wherein people can get up close and personal with Pteranodons (and even throw fish through a special slot to feed them) and watch them eat live fish from a water bowl on top of the gondola lifts, a function of Gallimimus valley wherein people can watch the T. rex hunt the Gallimimus (perhaps as a Call-Back to the first film), a submarine tour wherein people can see more marine reptiles in the Lagoon, including a Plesiosaurus and an Ichthyosaurus and a night tour wherein people can meet the Velociraptors while wearing night vision goggles.
• The Stegoceratops was originally going to be an actual dinosaur that appeared in the movie alongside other hybrid dinosaurs rather than a simple render on a computer, but Trevorrow scrapped it after he watched Return of the Jedi with his son, who pointed out that since Leia was also a Jedi, then Luke wasn't unique. He then applied that to the Indominus rex, making it the only hybrid dinosaur that appears so that it wouldn't seem like one of many.
• A short scene was cut of Zach and Grey sharing a chocolate bar after being chased off the waterfall by the Indominus.
• One scene that was conceptualized, but never filmed, involved the Indominus encountering an animatronic Tyrannosaurus along the park's Main Street and violently ripping its head off. The scene was scrapped because Spielberg thought the audience might interpret the scene as a mean-spirited Take That! saying CGI was better than animatronics.
• Gigantoraptor featured in some concept art and storyboards.
• The original script, written by Rise of the Planet of the Apes writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, had Owen named Vance and Claire named Whitney. "Vance" would've trained his raptors for mercenary use by the movie's opening, instead of Owen in the final film being vehemently against the idea. The latter would also have a more antagonistic role towards the former.
  • In this script, the Indominus was a dinosaur called the Malusaurus (which was depicted in concept art roughly resembling a cross between a Ceratosaurus and Spinosaurus). While the idea was still of a bigger-than-T. rex superpredator, the big difference from the Indominus was that the Malusaurus was intended to be a real dinosaur in-universe that was discovered at a dig site in China. Trevorrow disliked the idea of a fake dinosaur being passed off as real and decided to make the dinosaur Big Bad a genetic hybrid that was artificially created instead.
  • Gray's character was originally written as being autistic. This character trait was dropped, possibly for being plot-irrelevant, but the mannerisms nevertheless seem to imply it even in the final cut.

Fallen Kingdom

• Pachyrhinosaurus was going to be featured instead of Sinoceratops. That said, its name shows up on the list of dinosaurs taken on the Arcadia. The change led to one of the first toys tied in with the film being a Pachyrhinosaurus labeled as Sinoceratops.
• As shown in the film's concept art, Spinosaurus was going to appear in the scene where the dinosaurs run off when Sibo erupts, with the Spino meeting its end during the scene. Its appearance would have been foreshadowed by the characters stumbling across the carcass of a Teratophoneus (a small tyrannosaur) that had its neck snapped, just like the T.rex in Jurassic Park III. They would have then encountered the Spinosaurus itself, which would have been fought and killed by Rexy.
• It's been revealed that a deleted scene would have shown that there were two Indoraptors, the black/gold one from the movie and his sibling, a white one that looked more like the Indominus. The main Indoraptor would have killed his sibling resulting in him being the only one of its kind. This was scrapped mostly to avoid too many comparisons to the Indominus' origin.
• A deleted scene was going to explain why the Indoraptor was in a dark area of the lab, the repair man sent there to fix the lights never came back. His skull was to be seen lying in the cage. While the scene or any hints of it never made it to the final film it was included in the junior novelization.
• Several pieces of concept art would have made the fact that the Indoraptor was a Flawed Prototype much more obvious, something which is only shown by its aggressive behaviour in the final film. This included giving it fleshy, semi-translucent skin, making it partly blind, and giving it pustules all over its face. Other concept art shows they considered the idea of having it be more of an assorted hybrid, such as giving it the Dilophosaurus frill and Stegosaurus tail spikes, or having it spit venom.
• According to storyboards, there was going to be a different opening more prominently featuring the Mosasaurus. After escaping from her lagoon, she would have been hunting a whale pod that was also being targeted by a whaling ship. The Mosasaurus would first snatch a harpooned whale, dragging the ship with it, then would have attacked and sunk the whaler. A similar scene appears in Jurassic World Dominion but with a crab trap instead of a whale.
• Dilophosaurus was scripted to have had a cameo aboard the Arcadia, but the scene was never filmed as Bayona felt it added nothing to the story. Though some taxidermy specimens do prominently appear in Lockwood Manor, many fans have still been clamoring for the species to appear in the flesh for the first time since the original film. They finally got their wish in Dominion.
• It was heavily rumored that during production, and referenced in leaks, the Arcadia would have been slated to take the dinosaurs to Isla Sorna as part of the ruse. Mills and Lockwood do indeed mention an island as the goal, but never identify it, though Sorna is mentioned separately.
• The mansion housekeeper Iris was supposed to have encountered the Indoraptor and was presumably killed. The scene was conceptualized and filmed, but did not appear to have made it past post-production, resulting in the character anticlimactically disappearing in the film's last act.
• Zia's actress revealed in an interview that they shot a scene where they were arriving on Isla Nublar that confirmed the character was gay, but she'd make an exception for Owen. The scene was kept, but the specific line was cut.
• Trevorrow’s first draft for the film, titled Jurassic World: Ancient Futures, had the Arcadia boat trip take up most of the run time (which was a bit longer than the final film), and its destination as England instead of California, acting more as a set-up for the third Jurassic World film. Spielberg didn't really like the idea, so they decided to cut the boat trip part short, and then added in a scene of a dinosaur blood transfusion.
• Concept art depicts Metriacanthosaurus, Einiosaurus, and Giganotosaurus in the scenes on the island as the volcano is erupting. The last of the three would eventually appear as a major antagonist in the follow-up film.
• Maisie was originally going to be named Lucy.

Dominion

• Jake Johnson was originally supposed to return as Lowery Cruthers but the production delays and travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic meant he was unable to attend filming leading to his character being cut.
• Andy Buckley was also slated to return at some point as Scott Mitchell (Zach and Gray’s father), but was eventually removed during rewrites.
• Daniela Pineda originally was supposed have an additional scene before quarantine restrictions prevented her from being able to film it. Her role was given to a new character played by Varada Sethu (the woman at the Pennsylvania airport who speaks to Grant and Sattler).
• Collin Trevorrow reveals that the Oviraptor would have appeared in the Amber Clave Market as one of the dinosaurs being used for gladiatorial sport. Specifically, it would have been featured in a scene where it fights the Lystrosaurus, where it would've been decapitated in the duel. This explains why a fully-rendered CGI model of the Oviraptor exists in the prologue despite not appearing in the film itself. Fortunately, the scene was included in the Extended Edition.
• Several other scenes were deleted in the theatrical cut were restored in the extended home-video edition:
  • The film was originally intended to begin with a distant prologue showing the dinosaurs of the film roaming the Earth during the Late Cretaceous Period, including a feathered Tyrannosaurus fighting a Giganotosaurus to set up the rivalry between the two species, and then cutting to Rexy rampaging through a drive-in movie theatre in the present day. It's speculated that this prologue was cut because of the massive Artistic License in the scene: nearly all the animals depicted did not coexist in real life due to differences in time and place, including Tyrannosaurus and Giganotosaurus.
  • The scene of Blue teaching her baby Beta to hunt went on for slightly longer. After Beta attacks the wolf, two hunters would've shot at her, prompting Blue to attack and presumably kill them to defend her young.
  • Maisie riding her bike across the bridge in the beginning would've gone on for slightly longer, showing her buying candy at a store from a cashier who doesn't believe her explanation that she's "home-schooled".
  • In the Malta scene, the Allosaurus and Carnotaurus attacking people would've gone on slightly longer, showing the Allosaurus flinging a random bystander at the Carnotaurus.
  • In the final fight, after Rexy is defeated by the Giganotosaurus, there's a very brief flashback between lightning strikes showing her prehistoric feathered ancestor lying prone in the same position as a Call-Back to the prologue right before she regains consciousness and gets back into the fight.
• Deinonychus and a Suchomimus were planned to appear in Malta, but ultimately changed to Atrociraptor and Allosaurus respectively (although the Atrociraptor still look like Deinonychus). Mamenchisaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus were also considered, but ultimately did not appear.
• Concept art indicates that the Pyroraptor was considered to join Rexy in the fight against the Giganotosaurus in the final battle instead of the Therizinosaurus. At least one concept art also shows Grant and Owen encountering the Pyroraptor in the abandoned laboratory together instead of Beta.
• In a scene present in the juvenile novelization of the film (generally, novelizations are adapted from the script of the film before filming), Ellie's locust sample is eaten by the Giganotosaurus during the attack scene, but Ellie simply snaps the leg off one of the scorched locusts after they ward it off.

Miscellaneous

• Steven Spielberg changed the endings of the first two films in the middle of filming. In the first Jurassic Park, the film was supposed to end with the dinosaur fossils in the visitors' center falling on the raptors and crushing one of them, while Hammond shot the other one. Would've been a tad anti-climatic. Spielberg realised that the audiences would never forgive him if he didn't bring back the T. rex for one last heroic moment, and so he did. With The Lost World, it was supposed to end with a Pteranodon assault on a helicopter. Spielberg had proposed putting a T. rex in San Diego early on, but was more or less ignored, until he insisted that it was the ending that would be filmed. It is quite safe to say that both endings that found themselves in the movie are better than the planned ones.
• Universal's animation division created a pitchfilm for a possible animated series around 1995; it used a lot of then-state of the art CGI; the series never got off the ground. You can see it here. Since then, artist William Stout has revealed concept art for the proposed series- which didn't happen because Spielberg was burnt out from all the merch the movie had spawned. An outline for the first season has emerged, with the show's story focusing on an effort to restart Jurassic Park as primarily a scientific research preserve and BioSyn's rushed efforts at building their own dinosaur park "Dinoworld" in Brazil going horribly wrong.
• Going off that, the Jurassic Park Chaos Effect toyline, which featured a line of strange mutant dinosaur hybrids, was also originally supposed to tie in with an animated series, but it never got off the ground. Exactly why it was canned is a matter of debate. Some suggest Spielberg/Crichton did not like the concept when it was pitched and canned it. Another report suggests that Spielberg was in a bad mood the day it was to be pitched to him and canned it before even learning what it was about.
• What would've became the Jurassic World trilogy originally started out as a pitch for a video game with the same name to be developed by the creators of Trespasser which would've featured Billy Brennan from the third film as the game's main character but after a management shift at Universal, the game was cancelled in favor for a movie, several ideas from the video game eventually made it to the film itself such as the idea of Billy Brennan forming a bond with a Velociraptor named Blue, which ultimately went to Owen Grady.

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