The New Warden of Jurassic Park

When Steven Spielberg decided to forgo directing the third installment of his billion-dollar Jurassic Park franchise, he turned over the keys to his prized vehicle to Joe Johnston, the director of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Jumanji.

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When Steven Spielberg decided to forgo directing the third installment of his billion-dollar Jurassic Park franchise, he turned over the keys to his prized vehicle to Joe Johnston, the director of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Jumanji. That these two movies were both special effects-laden box-office hits surely weighed heavily in Spielberg's consideration, as did the Oscar for Best Visual Effects that Johnston shared with his Industrial Light & Magic compatriots for turning Spielberg's own Raiders of the Lost Ark into a visual spectacle. But Spielberg had other reasons for favoring Johnston. He'd just watched his fellow director's small, critically acclaimed gem October Sky, the modest true story of a group of boys in a coal-mining town whose passion for rocket science offers an escape from their own fathers' life-shortening fate of working the mines. October Sky hadn't made money, but its precise psychological portrait of fathers and sons showed a directorial hand that could create a needed emotional tug for the new group of characters that would try to avoid becoming dinosaur snacks in Jurassic Park III. The Lost World, the sequel to Jurassic Park, set an opening weekend record with a gross of more than $90 million and took in $600 million worldwide, so an eager initial audience for the third Jurassic Park movie was ensured. But would people care enough about the human element--which involved a returning Sam Neill, a grad student played by Alessandro Nivola and an estranged couple (William H. Macy and Tea Leoni) searching for their young son (Trevor Morgan), who's apparently missing on Isla Sorna--for this third dino spectacle to rake in megabucks? Spielberg trusted Joe Johnston to make sure they did.

A frustrated scientist wanna-be who gave up the possibility of a career in marine biology only after flunking physics four separate times, Johnston backed his way into a directing career that has let him indulge his love of science vicariously. Back in the '70s, a chance notice on a college bulletin board led him to become one of George Lucas's pioneering young visual effects artists at the embryonic Industrial Light & Magic. After years of working on films that would turn out to be some of the most beloved and suc¬cessful in Hollywood history, he went to USC film school and became a director. Fascination with science was at the core of Johnston's first movie, the big hit Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and the big miss that followed, The Rocketeer, so when he turned the true story of schoolboy rocket scientists into the intimate, low-budget October Sky in 1999, it wasn't as strange a move for him as it sounded. And though JPIII could be seen as a regression from the more emotionally complex October Sky, the big paycheck it offered Johnston was backed by the bait of a personal adventure in the science of paleontology. He couldn't resist.

DINO-DANGER REDUX: Sam Neill (here with computer-generated costars, and below with Johnston) returns to Jurassic Park for the third movie after skipping the second.

MICHAEL FLEMING: What is the dino-innovation in this third Jurassic Park movie that'll pump up the series? Is it the airborne dinosaurs we've heard about? JOE JOHNSTON: You're obligated to up the ante a bit each time, which is why these movies get harder and harder to make for around the same amount of money. The pteranodons, the flying reptiles, were in both the earlier movies in script and storyboard form. But what happens in movies like this is that when you get into production, you realize you can't afford everything. Steven cut the pteranodons out of the first movie, and he figured he'd put them in the second one. Then he had to cut them from the second one. One of the first things that he said to me in our meetings was that he'd always wanted these flying pteranodons, so he wanted me to come up with something great for them.

Q: There were rumors about a marine dinosaur, too. A: It was a great sequence in the first draft but they went the way of the pteranodons in the first two movies. We have a new heavy, though, the spinosaurus. A spinosaurus was discovered in the early 1900's, but the only example was in a museum in Germany, and it was destroyed during World War II. The spinosaurus was a lost dinosaur until some new examples were found 12 or so years ago. It's a predator, bigger than T. rex--56 feet long, while T. rex usually maxed out at about 45 feet. It had long arms with claws, as opposed to the T. rex's vestigial arms, so it definitely had an advantage. We decided if we had T. rex and we were going to introduce another big dinosaur, they'd have to fight. It's one of the high points of the movie.

Q: What was Spielberg's original idea for JPIII? A: It was a pretty simple idea, and very little of it is left. The part that remains is the notion of people marooned on the island. It was Steven's idea to have Sam Neill's character be discovered living on the island. He'd snuck in, after not being allowed in to research the dinosaurs, and was living in a tree like Robinson Crusoe. But I couldn't imagine this guy wanting to get back on any island that had dinosaurs on it after the first movie.

Q: What's it like getting a phone call from Steven Spielberg asking you to take control of his most valuable film franchise? A: He called and said he'd seen my movie October Sky and really liked it. Did I want to do Jurassic III? I'd asked him to put me on the short list if he ever decided not to direct a Jurassic Park sequel himself. As a director, I'm not a big fan of sequels, but it seemed the right time to do one. And I needed a job.

Q: Aside from needing a job, what's the upside for a director in taking over this franchise? A: Inevitably, what I do is going to be compared to what Steven did. There's no way around that. But this film has a built-in audience. It's all set up for you. A whole lot of people are going to see the movie opening weekend just on the strength of the other two.

Q: Did Spielberg make it easy for you to feel you were a director executing your vision, as opposed to being an emissary carrying out his? A: Yeah. Steven basically said, "Go make the movie." He had suggestions during the scriptwriting phase and after he saw the rough cut--great ideas that allowed us to get a little more money from the studio--but he never said, "This is what you have to do." In my experience, he's never been dictatorial.

Q: Your stars, Bill Macy and Tea Leoni, I have talked about the script not being I locked when shooting started. How did that happen? A: You have a script, but inevitably, when you get onto the set, block the scene and run it a couple times, new ideas come up. We took advantage of those ideas. I wouldn't allow myself to come to work not knowing exactly what I was going to be shooting, but a week or month ahead, I'm willing to reconceive a scene or throw it out and add a new one.

Q: Big films like this don't need big stars, so how do you determine your cast? A: I was really happy when Steven said he wanted to bring Sam Neill back, because he's a great character who ties this film to the first one. For the married couple, we sat around and threw out names. What two actors could we put together who'd have chemistry and would play off each other? Bill Macy and Tea Leoni just sounded so great. I could see those two married in an interesting, stormy relationship. Trevor Morgan, the young son, was one of a couple hundred kids we read. When he came in, we said, "Let's not look any further." Some actors tell you who the character is in their reading. That's what Trevor did. You believed he could live alone on an island populated by dinosaurs for eight weeks and stay alive.

Q: You'd worked with Spielberg years ago on the visual effects for Raiders of the Lost Ark. What was your greatest contribution to that film? A: It came at the end, when the ark was opened. Steven had generated a whole bunch of ideas of what that moment was, and he'd gone to other storyboard artists. He gave it all to me, told me how long the sequence could run, and asked me to pick what I liked best, add my own ideas, and draw it up as one sequence. It was really gratifying to be able to track my storyboards all the way through in the final cut.

Q: Going back to the beginning of your career, how did you get to the point of working on Raiders? A: I worked in television for six years as a scenic artist, painting backdrops. Remember the wall in "Laugh-In"? Where you opened the doors? I was one of a large crew of scenic artists who painted all of that stuff. Then I had a mini-career as a product designer, but I ended up going back to school at Long Beach. It was there that I saw an ad on a bulletin board, asking for model builders, artists and storyboard artists for a space movie. I was one of three people who bothered to answer the ad, and I got the job with George Lucas. It completely changed the direction of my life.

Q: When you were drawing storyboards for Lucas, did you have any idea what Star Wars would turn into? A: No. I didn't even know what a storyboard was when I started. I was part of the group of people at Industrial Light & Magic who began out in the San Fernando Valley. We had no idea what we were working on. A lot of us didn't have any film experience at all. But John Dykstra, who supervised it, assembled people with skills, put the team together, and guided us. When we finally saw a rough cut of the film, just after New Year's Day in 1977, we knew it was going to be great. We didn't know how great, but we all sat there and said, "Wow."

Q: Was that a profound, life-changing moment? A: My whole experience with Lucasfilm was amazing because George was so generous with his knowledge. I was a storyboard artist and he'd invite me into the cutting room and I'd draw storyboards while we were watching the movie. As he was cutting the movie, he'd say, "We don't need that shot." I'd say, "Why not?" And he'd say, "Because we say the same thing here." That went on for nine years. It was like going to the best film school in the country, one-on-one. You couldn't duplicate that experi¬ence. When I'd gotten sick of doing visual effects and was ready to get out of the business, I went to George and told him I was going to take money I'd saved and travel the world. He said, "I've got a better idea. Why don't you go to film school? If you go to USC, I'll get you to the front of the line so you can go right in. I'll see to it that you can pick the classes you want to take. I'll pay your tuition. And I'll keep you on half salary." That was an offer I couldn't refuse. I was 34 and knew if I didn't do it then, I never would. I was really glad that I did it. I learned a lot of stuff, but I also learned that I already knew a lot. When I got out, George let me do second unit direction on a couple of his Ewok TV movies. Because of him, it was much easier to step into directing.

Q: What was your contribution on The Empire Strikes Back, which seems a particularly interesting film for anyone trying to make a good sequel to have worked on? There were such great ideas, like the fighting sequence with the Imperial Walkers. A: George said we had to have this big battle on this snowy planet. We wanted the Empire to have some amazing machines. The first designs were big tanks. Then I saw this portfolio for U.S. Steel done by the designer Syd Mead. He had these walking trucks that were designed to go where there were no roads. Credit Syd Mead for the inspiration. We just made them war machines instead of trucks. It took over a year to do all that stuff and I'm amazed, still, what the stop-motion animators accomplished. You really believed it all.

Q: How intimidating was it to work on your directorial debut, Honey, I Shrunk The Kids! A: At USC, I'd made a nine-minute black-and-white film that was the only thing I had on tape. Disney had fired the director of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and there was a mad scramble for the job. I was in London producing Willow, and I got the script, read it going back to L.A. and made my notes, basically shredding the thing. It was so dark. There were five kids, and one of them died in the process. I skewed to the overtly commercial side, thinking of the audience they wanted to hit. I took my meeting, gave them my notes and left my nine-minute student film for Jeffrey Katzenberg and all these guys. I walked out thinking, "I'm never getting that job." They're six weeks from principal photography and I'm telling them to throw out their script and start over. Two days later, they called and said they wanted me. I asked if they liked my student film. They said, "No, nobody understood it." But they liked my notes enough to push back the start date for rewriting. I hung up the phone and thought, "Oh, shit! Now I have to do this." But I had a great crew and was lucky to shoot in Mexico. Disney was notorious for micromanaging, but nobody wanted to go to Mexico. I did what I wanted.

Q: You started with a hit, then moved to The Rocketeer, which was not a hit. A: I came away from The Rocketeer feeling that maybe I was ready to go back to marine biology. I had too much fun making it. The movies I have fun on don't do well at the box office. I had a great time on The Rocketeer and October Sky. Jumanji was hell. Jurassic Park III was hell, so right there that's a good sign.

Q: Jumanji was a terrible title for a movie, but snuck up on its young audience. A: The studio was worried about the title, one time proposing that we should call this The Game: Jumanji. I said, "What, are you out of your mind? People are going to know it's a game if you do that. Let them wonder what it means." It was weird enough to be attractive to people.

Q: Having been behind the scenes on some of the biggest movies of all time and having experienced flops too, can you tell the difference between a bomb and a hit when they're still on the page? A: There's no way to know. Anybody who tells you they know what's going to be commercial and what is not, you should avoid those people. They're yanking your chain. Nobody knows anything.

Q: What's the best scene you've ever shot? A: It's the scene in October Sky, where the father, Chris Cooper, has saved a boy from his drunken stepfather. They're in the car and he tells the boy that his father was one of the best men who ever worked for him. It wasn't in the script, but we knew we needed something, and I love how it played. It made the father the person you wanted him to be, somehow.

Q: Jumanji showed herds of rampaging animals. How much better quality is the technology behind JPIIP. A: It's all in the subtle detail. There's software now that covers muscle groups, so that when a dinosaur exerts itself, the muscles contract, and where muscles aren't being used, the fat deposits move like fat, and all of it happens under the texture of the skin. I don't want the audience to come out of Jurassic Park III and say, "Wow, what great visual effects." I want them to come out and say, "Wow, those dinosaurs are really alive. They must have cloned dinosaurs and trained them to run through the shot." The people at ILM are more committed to that than I was. Once they've done a dinosaur, they'll be able to do a giraffe or a lion. Eventually, they'll be able to do it with a human. I believe someday they will be able to create a computer-generated human that you'll not be able to distinguish from a real human standing right next to them in the scene.

Q: What will JPIII bring to the table that wasn't there in the others? Is it scarier? A: I feel we've upped the ante as far as the scary stuff. I don't know that I'd want my six-year-old to see this movie except while sitting on my lap. But none of that works unless you feel for the characters, so that was another target.

Q: After all this, what do you want to do? A: I'll spend half of July and as much of August as I can in Montana on a dig. Jack Horner, our consultant and one of the best-known paleontologists in the world, has found as many as five T. rex skeletons in the ground. They're all marked and ready to be excavated. There are a dozen or so T. rex skeletons in museums around the world, and he has five of them in the ground. It's going to be a big summer. I want to be there for as much as I can.

Q: It would seem the last thing you'd want to do after spending two years on JPIII is to hang out with dinosaurs. A: I don't want to hang around with movie dinosaurs, but I want to hang out with the real thing. When I go up there, Jack doesn't let me excavate because I might drop or break something. He sends me out with a bunch of grad students to comb the hillsides, to find new stuff. They're called death marches, walking until we see bones, then trying to find where they're coming from. You walk along, find something like this [holds up the thing he's toying with in his hand] and realize you're the first human to pick this thing up. It's the tip of a tooth from a T. rex. I found it on a dig. This cannot be any newer than 65 million years old. The last time it moved, it was in a dinosaur's mouth. If I could support myself in the manner to which I've become accustomed, I could see myself involved in paleontology.

Q: What's your coolest movie souvenir, the Oscar you won for visual effects on Raiders of the Lost Ark or that tooth? A: This. No disrespect to the Academy, I don't even know where my Oscar is.

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Michael Fleming interviewed Simon West for the June issue of Movieline.