Jurassic Park (1993) and Booksmart (2019)

Film Stories

Monday, 12 May 2025 - 1 hour 7 minutes

The behind the scenes stories of two films some time in the making come together in this episode, starting with 1993's Jurassic Park. A film made at a point when Steven Spielberg's box office touch was being questioned. A movie that, had a battle for the rights gone the other way, could have been made by one of Tim Burton, Joe Dante or Richard Donner.

As it was, Universal and Spielberg made the movie, and the Arnold Schwarzenegger-headlined Last Action Hero was set to go head-to-head with it.

2019's Booksmart meanwhile took ten years to get made, even though its budget was well under $10m. First time director Olivia Wilde had quite the pitch to earn the job behind the camera - but then had a battle to get audiences to the movie once she'd made it.

Stories of both are told in this episode...

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