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Seamus Blackley has revealed that the Jurassic World movies started life as a sequel to 1998 FPS Jurassic Park: Trespasser.
Blackley, who’s credited as the creator and designer of the original Xbox, made the revelation in a Twitter thread. As spotted by Video Games Chronicle, Blackley explained to his followers the tale that started off as a young game designer back in 1995. At that time, he took a job at Dreamworks, and led the team who released the EA-published Trespasser on PC in 1998. The game got a mixed reception, but was notable for being an early example of a physics-based game.
However, as Blackley notes, its poor sales eventually caused him to leave Dreamworks, and so he took arguably his most famous job at Microsoft. Fast forward a few years, and he’d leave Xbox to found his own game finance company. It was there he’d eventually on occasion run into Steven Spielberg himself. At some point, Blackley got a call from Universal telling him they were interested in rebooting the Jurassic Park franchise. In fact, Spielberg apparently wanted to start with a new Trespasser.
Blackley was even asked to create a storyline and pitch for the new game. Together, they created a pitch which included a trailer, that leaked around ten years ago. (You can check that out below.) Alas, though Steven apparently “loved” it, the co-president of Universal then departed the company. The game was cancelled, but a movie in the works got all the assets. That movie became Jurassic World.
It’s a fascinating thread, and you can read the full story starting here. Blackley has promised to reveal more on the cancelled Jurassic Park Trespasser sequel in a conversation with Jurassic Park website Jurassic Time next month.
Next thing I know, Kathy Kennedy (love her) tells me I need to
1) Write a story and gameplay pitch for Steven and the co-presidents of Universal, and
2) Make a TRAILER TO SHOW STEVEN SPIELBERG
So, that’s a vomit in the trash can moment right there. A trailer for Steven. Sure.
— Seamus Blackley (@SeamusBlackley) July 25, 2022
