Ideas often sprout up from the most unlikely places. For Seamus Blackley, creator of the original Xbox, it was inadvertently planting seeds for what would eventually blossom into Jurassic World.
On Saturday, Blackley revealed he was working with Steven Spielberg on a Jurassic Park franchise revival in 2012 (Thanks, VGC). Specifically, conceptualizing a video game that would release alongside whatever film would come out. Before his time at Microsoft, Blackley had previously worked on Trespasser, the critically-panned The Lost World: Jurassic Park tie-in game. So he had experience with the series but wanted to make a good title this time.
“I wrote a story about dinosaurs on Isla Sorna and the research sites escaping, and about how humans had to come to terms with the original owners of the planet,” Blackley said on Twitter. “My thesis was that audiences wanted to know the dinosaurs more than to kill them.”
“Not monsters. Earthlings. And with the help of incredibly talented artists and coders, we made a game design, an art design, and a story Bible,” Blackley continues. “We called it Jurassic World.”
Blackley then came up with a pitch trailer, which leaked online many years ago. Check it out for yourself below.
Sadly, the game never came out. However, Frank Marshal, producer of the Jurassic World film from 2015, eventually received materials from the unreleased title.
“Then the co-president of Universal left, everything was scrambled, and the next thing I knew, I was sending all our art assets to Frank Marshal,” Blackley concludes. “Who is also a fantastic person, who is the nicest guy in Hollywood. There was a movie in the works, and the cancellation of the game meant they got everything. Honestly, this was the best outcome possible.”
Blackley explains that artwork and more details about the game will be in an upcoming interview with Jurassic Time, a memoir website, in the coming weeks.
Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.
