Artist William Stout Shares ‘Escape From Jurassic Park’ Animated Series Insights at SDCC 2021 Special Edition Panel!
William Stout, whose book The Dinosaurs: A Fantastic New View of a Lost Era inspired Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, presented a “Spotlight on William Stout” panel at San Diego Comic-Con Special Edition this weekend, and we were fortunate enough to attend. During the presentation he shared some very fun insights into his work on the ‘Escape From Jurassic Park’ animated series as well as stories from his career in the art and film industries – most interestingly those from his time in the world of Jurassic Park.
William Stout’s career spans more than 50 years, and his love for dinosaurs spans even longer. He wrote and illustrated his book The Dinosaurs: A Fantastic New View of a Lost Era in order to incorporate and share new discoveries about dinosaurs’ lives and behavior.
One of his first major film credits was Conan The Barbarian, and he first met Kathleen Kennedy (producer/executive producer of the first three Jurassic Park films) in the production office of that film. Through Kennedy and other connections in the industry, his name was in conversations surrounding the production of Jurassic Park in the early 1990s. Stout was among those considered by Steven Spielberg to be the production designer for the film. Though he was very interested and thought he could’ve been perfect for the job, Spielberg later chose Rick Carter (who did an incredible job). When asked about this, Stout said:
“There are a couple of sayings in Hollywood: ‘The more perfect you are for a job, the less likely it is that you’ll get it’ and also ‘The more you want a job, the less likely it is that you’ll get it.’ I really wanted the job. It was the only job I ever really pursued employment on. Others just came to me. I also think they were worried based on my prior knowledge of dinosaurs that I might suggest something that Spielberg didn’t want, which I never would have done. I was extremely interested in the job and pursued it very hard, harder than any other job in my career. And sometimes the jobs you pursue that hard are the ones you end up not getting.”
Stout certainly would have had a very unique take on the production of Jurassic Park. He remains a huge fan despite it all.
When asked about his time working on ‘Escape From Jurassic Park’, Stout said:
“Working on the Jurassic Park animated series was so fantastic for me. It was heavily inspired by European and German comic book series – not only the humans but the dinosaurs as well. It was meant for primetime, and for adults and family members. It was not gonna be a kiddie show, and they were gonna use a lot of CG animation to do the vehicles and things. We shot a trailer for it that was just incredible. But about the time they decided they would show it to Steven Spielberg (because they needed his final blessing on the project), he had been so inundated with Jurassic Park merchandising and marketing that he was sick of it. He didn’t even look at the trailer, he just said ‘Nah, I don’t even wanna do it.'”
The unfortunate cancellation of the series is truly a shame. It sounds incredible every time it comes up in conversation, and it seems Stout really loved working on it. The image above, according to Stout, was “inspired by zookeepers feeding Condors at the San Diego Zoo.” You can view some of his concept artwork for ‘Escape From Jurassic Park’ in the gallery below. Read our exclusive coverage of the full season one plot of ‘Escape From Jurassic Park’ here.
What do you think about these new insights and stories from William Stout? Let us know in the comments, and stay tuned for more Jurassic coverage from San Diego Comic-Con!
Images and concept art courtesy of William Stout. Visit his website to see his incredible Jurassic works and more!
