The upcoming Adam Driver sci-fi movie 65 takes place in the age of the dinosaurs, and could become a rare non-Jurassic Park dinosaur hit.
65 could break the status quo for modern dinosaur movies in a big way. In 65, Adam Driver portrays space explorer Mills, whose ship crash lands on Earth during the age of the dinosaurs. Mills and his fellow survivor, a young girl named Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), are forced to navigate a strange world populated by pre-historic creatures while trying to find a way to get back home.
After numerous release date delays, 65 is set to finally arrive in theaters on March 17, 2023. When it comes to dinosaur movies, comparisons with the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World franchises are inevitable. However, this could actually be a major advantage for 65, and could even enable the movie to accomplish something that has long eluded contemporary dinosaur movies.
Jurassic Park & Jurassic World Are The Only Major Modern Dino Movies
Since the 1993 release of Jurassic Park, both it and the sequels it spawned have held a virtual monopoly on mainstream dinosaur movies. Hardly any other endeavors at making big-budget dinosaur movies have even been attempted with the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies around. The closest thing to them have been the dinosaurs featured in 2005’s King Kong and 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, but their dinosaurs were more guest stars in movies devoted to the titular simian giant.
Other than the Jurassic Park movies, dinosaurs have largely shown up in low-budget fare like the Roger Corman-produced Carnosaur franchise or the occasional mockbuster from The Asylum (2009’s Land of the Lost making no real impact either.) While the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies have certainly done their job of bringing dinosaurs to the big-screen, that has also greatly limited the public perception of dinosaurs in a cinematic context. 65 is the first modern dinosaur movie with a true shot at changing that.
Why 65 Could Be A Non-Jurassic Park Dino Hit
Even without the movie being released, it is clear that apart from the basic presence of dinosaurs, 65 is virtually nothing like any Jurassic Park or Jurassic World movies. 65 takes place eons in the past before the extinction of the dinosaurs, and puts its human characters into an even more dire situation than electrified fences being short-circuited. With 65 able to easily fend off the perception of being a Jurassic Park knock-off, it could finally change the landscape of dinosaur movies in a similar way to how Jurassic Park originally did.
If 65 succeeds at the box office and wins over audiences, it could open the very real possibility for dinosaurs to be placed into all kinds of new stories on the big screen, especially those set during pre-historic times. With its plethora of T-Rexes and other dinosaurs, Jurassic Park and Jurassic World have had great runs, but the time has come for some new concepts and ideas for dinosaur movies. It has been a long time coming, but 65 might finally be just the new apex predator of dinosaur movies.