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Do you want an R-rated Jurassic Park movie? James Cameron tried to make it "much nastier", but Steven Spielberg got the franchise instead

James Cameron revealed that his Jurassic Park movie would have "gone further" and "much nastier" than Spielberg's kid-friendly film

An image from Jurassic Park
Image credit: Universal

When Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park novel came out and took the world by storm in 1990, it got the attention of James Cameron. Cameron moved to buy the rights to Crichton's book, only to find out that Steven Spielberg had beaten him to it. Still, the Titanic and Avatar director concedes that the film Spielberg made is probably the better one in the long run. 

Speaking at the Titanic Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland, according to Huffington Post, Cameron revealed that Spielberg had bought the rights to Jurassic Park only "a few hours" before he made the call. "But when I saw the film, I realized that I was not the right person to make the film, he was," Cameron began. "Because he made a dinosaur movie for kids, and mine would have been Aliens with dinosaurs, and that wouldn't have been fair."

"Dinosaurs are for 8-year-olds. We can all enjoy it, too, but kids get dinosaurs and they should not have been excluded from that. His sensibility was right for that film, I'd have gone further, nastier, much nastier," Cameron concluded. 

That said, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to seeing what an Aliens-inspired Jurassic Park film directed by James Cameron would look like. And let's also not forget that Cameron made Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a profoundly moving film where a kid gets chased by a near-impossible force, the T-1000. I would say that Cameron is pretty good at making films where kids are in perilous situations. 

Still, Spielberg's first Jurassic Park film is undeniably iconic, so we'll leave it at that. 


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Jules Chin Greene

Jules Chin Greene: Jules Chin Greene is a journalist and Jack Kirby enthusiast. He has written about comics, video games, movies, and television for sites such as Nerdist, AIPT, Multiverse of Color, and Screen Rant.

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