Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park sequel has spawned a lot of things. One of them was a medical drama that became one of the best shows ever made.
Noah Wyle recently appeared on Dropping Names, hosted by Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes, and revealed that The Lost World: Jurassic Park was the reason ER ever got made. The show’s creator, Michael Crichton, had been working on the script for 20-some-odd years, but it took Spielberg wanting Crichton to write the sequel to finally get the green light.
“It had sat languishing unproduced for 20-some-odd years, and it wasn’t until Steven Spielberg wanted to have Michael write Jurassic Park 2. They quid-pro-quo’d it, and he said, ‘What if you produce this old movie of mine?’ And Steven said, ‘It’s very technical, I don’t see it as a movie, what about a TV show?’ Then John Wells came onboard, and that’s how that happened.”
Spielberg’s Quid Pro Quo
Crichton and Spielberg knew each other since the 1970s, when they met at Universal Studios. Crichton had originally written ER as a feature film, but the script’s technical demands kept it from finding a home. Spielberg saw the problem differently.
He told Crichton the show was too technical for a movie. He suggested a TV series instead.
Wyle remembered reading the script and thinking it was clearly a movie. Then he heard it was a TV show and joked that the show was so good it would be cancelled quickly.
From Script to Pilot
NBC executives were doubtful about the show’s chances. The pilot underwent very few changes before production, though two notable ones stuck. Sherry Stringfield joined the cast as Dr. Susan Lewis, and Dr. Peter Benton became a Black character, with Eriq La Salle cast in the role.
The film The Lost World: Jurassic Park was released on May 23, 1997. It grossed over $618.6 million worldwide.
The Legacy That Followed
ER also gave birth to another hit. Wyle, John Wells and R. Scott Gemmill created The Pitt, which continued the series’ record-breaking streak.
Spielberg’s involvement with ER has been known for years. His website’s official page notes that he and Crichton met back in the 1970s at Universal Studios, and that Crichton originally wrote it as a feature film. This is the first indication of why the movie script didn’t find a home for so long.
The Story Behind the Sequel
Crichton’s Lost World: Jurassic Park development is infamous. Crichton spent years being pressured to write a sequel, including by Spielberg himself. He had yet to write a sequel to any of his novels and found it difficult to craft a storyline that lived up to the original.
The reviews for both the novel and the film show how those hesitations affected the creative approach. The film grossed over $618.6 million worldwide.
The film follows Jeff Goldblum’s Dr. Ian Malcolm as he investigates Isla Sorna. InGen wants to sell dinosaurs to create a new theme park, but Malcolm warns the executives about the danger. The previously contained threats run loose, bringing terror stateside.
What This Means
Wyle’s admission is delightful. It shows how a major filmmaker’s interest can change the course of a project. It also shows how a writer’s reluctance can lead to unexpected results.
The irony is that Crichton’s hesitation about writing a sequel to his own book led to a show that outlasted the original novel and film.
The show’s legacy includes sitting as the second-longest-running primetime medical drama in history and the most Emmy-nominated primetime show in history, with 124 nominations and 23 wins.
That is a strange chain of events. It is also a beautiful one.
See the video the story is built around at Screenrant.
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