What’s better than Jurassic Park? Firstly, nothing. Nothing is better than Jurassic Park. But – and it’s a big but – what if something was? Say, a futuristic Jurassic Park-style film?
Step forward 65, Sony Pictures’ forthcoming sci-fi thriller that stars Adam Driver (Star Wars, A Marriage Story), is written by the visionaries behind A Quiet Place and is executively produced by Doctor Strange 2‘s Sam Raimi.
Okay, what’s that got to do with dinosaurs? More importantly, what’s it got to with Jurassic Park? Well, Mills – that’s the name of Driver’s space pilot character in 65 – crash lands on an unknown planet when a particular mission goes awry. As it happens, the world he crashes onto is none other than Earth. 65 million years ago. At the height of the Cretaceous period. See? Now the movie’s title makes sense!
Anyway, here’s the official trailer for 65, if you haven’t already seen it:
Now, is it just me, or does it actually look like a decent watch? Okay, it’s not going to live up to the might of 1993’s Jurassic Park (read our ranking of every Jurassic movie to date). After all, we’ve already established that few films can live up to that masterpiece.
However, 65 doesn’t look half-bad (for a film with a $91 million budget, you’d expect nothing less, really). It takes the best of the dinosaur disaster movie formula – i.e. big, scary reptiles that want an easy lunch and smash about the place – and throws them and one of the world’s best actors into a sci-fi setting with a semi-compelling narrative. What’s not to love?
Speaking of its plot, in a press release, Sony explained a bit more about what audiences can, erm, chew on when 65 lands in theaters next year. “After a catastrophic crash on an unknown planet, pilot Mills (Adam Driver) quickly discovers he’s actually stranded on Earth…65 million years ago.
“Now, with only one chance at rescue, Mills and the only other survivor, Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), must make their way across an unknown terrain riddled with dangerous prehistoric creatures in an epic fight to survive.”
And let’s be clear here: there haven’t been many top-tier dinosaur movies for a long time. Jurassic Park (yes, I’m going to mention it for a fourth time) reigns supreme, but what other dinosaur-starring flicks can be considered good?
The Good Dinosaur, one of Pixar’s animated movies – read our Pixar movies, ranked piece while you’re here – could be viewed as one, depending on who you ask. The 1988 animated adventure movie The Land Before Time is also a cult classic. I suppose you could include one of the many King Kong films here, too, as there are dinosaurs in each of the giant ape’s cinematic offerings. One we can all agree on is that the other five Jurassic movies aren’t brilliant films, regardless of how entertaining some of them are (not you, though, Jurassic World: Dominion).
So, 65 doesn’t have much in the way of competition when it comes to high-quality dinosaur films. With a fantastic leading man in Driver, too, 65 could be something of a sleeper hit when it arrives on March 10, 2023.
Heck, it could even surprise us and actually perform above expectations. Outside of Shazam 2 and John Wick Chapter 4, which land in theaters on March 17 and March 24 respectively, 65 has a relatively free run at the global box office. Everyone loves dinosaurs. Everyone loves Adam Driver. So why wouldn’t everyone go and see the two go head to head on the biggest screen possible? I certainly will be.
65 isn’t the only big movie trailer that Sony has released recently. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the highly anticipated animated sequel to 2018’s Into the Spider-Verse, received its first official trailer on December 13. And, considering the amazing amount of Spider-People it contains, it’s another film I can’t wait to catch in cinemas.
65 arrives in theaters worldwide on March 10, 2023.