Jurassic Park, Westworld, and Twister Share One Big Connection

Directors like Steven Spielberg have long sought out source material from the literary world, hoping to adapt great works of science fiction into feature films. Even a generation-old director like Spielberg required a writing voice that could use real-world science to explain the fictional events of a science fiction film. Fortunately, early in Spielberg’s career as a television director, he met such a writer, Michael Crichton.

Crichton has written the source novels and screenplay drafts for some of the most successful franchises in film and television, including jurassic park1973 movie Westworlda hit song in 1996. twisterthe medical series that spans 15 seasons. ERCrichton was a brilliant academic, having graduated from Harvard Medical School, and showed insights into science and medicine that most Hollywood writers did not possess. He was also an incredibly gifted storyteller, and he was able to make you believe that technological advances that were still far away were possible today.

Crichton discovered his passion for writing while studying medicine.

Crichton grew up in the picturesque town of Roslyn, Long Island, and after a stellar high school career that saw him publish articles in The New York Times As a teenager, Crichton attended Harvard University. While traveling through Europe on an academic fellowship, Crichton began writing novels that often involved computer science and the new technologies he was learning about as an academic. Crichton wrote under the pseudonym John Lang, believing that his passion for writing might one day create a conflict of interest if he became a doctor.

By his third year at Harvard Medical School, Crichton realized he would never be happy as a doctor. and that he should instead pursue writing full-time. His first novel under his own name, Andromeda StrainThe book “Iron Man” became a bestseller and was the first of his works to be adapted for film in 1971. Crichton received $250,000 for the film option and quickly realized that a career in show business could be as lucrative as being a doctor. The towering 6-foot-9 Crichton was hard to miss on the set and made some important connections early in his screenwriting career.

Crichton began making films inspired by his own writings.

Crichton began directing adaptations of his own books in the early 1970s, but despite his immediate success as a novelist, Crichton's Hollywood career faced some difficulties in the early days.While the film is based on Andromeda Strain It was somewhat successful, and was modified again, The peripheral manThe film failed despite an interesting performance by George Segal. In 1973, Crichton wrote and directed the film. WestworldA low-budget science fiction film about an amusement park where customers interact with robots in historic settings, the film was met with critical acclaim, winning praise from the likes of Gene Siskel and Vincent Canby, but was not the box office success Crichton had hoped for.

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Crichton's pattern had begun, where no matter how successful his books were, he could never replicate that acclaim as a filmmaker. The Great Train Robbery In 1978, it was more of the same. The book was a bestseller for Crichton, but even a star-studded cast, including Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland, couldn't help the 1978 film become a box office hit. Crichton continued to make mostly average films in the 1980s, But the book he wrote in 1990 was enough to dramatically change his fortunes. In the world of cinema. That was jurassic parkwhich once again used an amusement park as its basis – this time filled with cloned dinosaurs.

Crichton's collaboration with Spielberg was the most important factor in its success.

Crichton has been friends with Steven Spielberg for years. The two met when Spielberg toured Crichton around Universal Studios in the early 1970s. Many famous directors and studios made offers to jurassic parkAfter the film became a bestseller—with Crichton setting the fee at $1.5 million—after attempts by Tim Burton, James Cameron, and Richard Donner to buy the rights, Universal bought the film for Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment.

Spielberg felt that jurassic park It can basically be a sequel to Jaws But on the ground. His interest in telling this kind of story came from his love of nature. Godzilla, King of the Monsters!which provided a plausible story for Godzilla's existence. Spielberg realized that what really struck him about the book was jurassic park It was a “really credible look at how dinosaurs might one day be brought back alongside modern humanity.” The rest was history as Spielberg pioneered the use of new CGI technology to bring hyper-realistic dinosaurs to life on screen, and jurassic park The film grossed over $1 billion and spawned six sequels..

After Jurassic Park, Crichton became a golden goose.

Suddenly, studios were once again scrambling to adapt Crichton's work, including Spielberg's producing partners Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, who had adapted Crichton's 1980 book, CongoIn 1995, the popular Amblin Television series was turned into another successful movie. By that time, Amblin Television had already developed its own successful TV show. ERwhich Crichton had created and worked on with Spielberg for half a decade. Then came another collaboration between Spielberg and Crichton under the Amblin banner, twisterIn 1996. Crichton went on to write more than a dozen screen adaptations of his novels during this era, including sunrise and Disclosure.

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Crichton's most enduring legacy was his insistence on tackling difficult subjects such as genetics, space technology, and robotics. In a way that predicted the future of filmmaking. Even when the science fiction genre fell out of favor, Crichton was still adapting his own or other writers' works for the cinema. Then, when Crichton's films became very successful in the 1990s, earlier works such as Westworld Eventually, we'll get a second look. It's almost funny how far HBO's version of Westworld Crichton’s 1973 film, which cost just $1.2 million to make, was more impressive. Yet this film speaks to Crichton’s insights into the future, as these stories continue to evolve as films—even 16 years after his death in 2008. jurassic park It is streaming on Peacock.