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What’s better than Jurassic Park? First, nothing. Nothing beats Jurassic Park. But – and it’s a big but – what if there was something? Say, a Jurassic Park-style futuristic movie?
Step Forward 65, the upcoming sci-fi thriller from Sony Pictures starring Adam Driver (Star Wars, A Marriage Story), is written by the visionaries behind A Quiet Place and executive produced by Sam Raimi of Doctor Strange 2.
Okay, what does that have to do with dinosaurs? More importantly, what does it have to do 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 certain mission fails. Coincidentally, the world he crashes into is none other than Earth. 65 million years ago. At the height of the Cretaceous. To see? Now the title of the movie makes sense!
Anyway, here’s the official trailer for 65, if you haven’t seen it yet:
Is it just me, or does it actually look like a decent watch? Okay, it won’t live up to the power of 1993’s Jurassic Park (read our ranking of every Jurassic movie to date). After all, we’ve already established that few movies can match that masterpiece.
65 doesn’t look half bad though (for a movie with a $91 million budget, you wouldn’t really expect anything less). It takes the best of the dinosaur disaster movie formula — i.e. big, creepy reptiles wanting an easy lunch and scurrying about everywhere — and throws them and one of the world’s best actors into a sci-fi setting with a semi-compelling story. What’s not to love?
Speaking of the plot, in a press release, Sony laid out a bit more about what audiences can, er, chew on when 65 hits theaters next year. “After a catastrophic crash on an unknown planet, pilot Mills (Adam Driver) soon discovers that he 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 navigate an uncharted territory teeming with dangerous prehistoric creatures in an epic fight for survival.”
And let’s be clear here: there haven’t been many top-tier dinosaur movies before a long time. Jurassic Park (yes, I’m going to mention it for the fourth time) reigns supreme, but what other dinosaur movies can be considered good?
The Good Dinosaur, one of Pixar’s animated movies – read our Pixar movies, ranked piece while you’re here – can be watched as an animated movie, depending on who you ask. The 1988 animated adventure film The Land Before Time is also a cult classic. I suppose you could pick up one of the many King Kong movies here too, as there are dinosaurs in every one of the giant ape’s cinematic offerings. What we can all agree on is that the other five Jurassic movies aren’t brilliant movies, no matter how entertaining some of them are (not you though, Jurassic World: Dominion).
So 65 has little competition when it comes to high-quality dinosaur movies. Also featuring a fantastic lead in Driver, 65 could be a sleepy hit when it arrives March 10, 2023.
Heck, it might even surprise us and even perform beyond expectations. Outside of Shazam 2 and John Wick Chapter 4, which hit theaters March 17 and 24, respectively, 65 has a relatively free run at the global box office. Everyone loves dinosaurs. Everyone loves Adam Driver. So why not everyone go see the two go head to head on the biggest screen possible? I certainly will.
65 isn’t the only major movie trailer Sony has released recently. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the highly anticipated animated sequel to 2018’s Into the Spider-Verse, got its first official trailer on December 13. don’t wait to catch it in movie theaters.
65 hits theaters worldwide on March 10, 2023.