Warner Bros. Buys 'Dinosaurs Attack Los Angeles' Pitch From Break Media
"It's like Battle: Los Angeles, but with dinosaurs." "Imagine the last act of The Lost World, but for an hour and a half." These are just some of the sentences that might have been uttered in pitch meetings for Warner Bros. latest acquisition: a high concept film about "a rapidly evolving species of dinosaurs who attack modern Los Angeles." Originally conceptualized as a web series, longtime James Cameron colleague John Clisham will direct from a script by Mike Bayman. Read more after the jump.
Deadline broke the news of this deal and said that specific plot details beyond what's said above are being kept under wraps. What has been revealed, though, is Clisham and Bayman's idea was originally being developed by Break Media, a large sale, male-orientated internet company who's best known for Break.com, essentially their own uncensored version of YouTube. Warner Bros. executives got wind of the pitch, however, and decided they wanted to develop it as a feature.
Dinosaurs are pretty much guaranteed to draw in a certain amount of moviegoers no matter the story surrounding them and the destruction of Los Angeles is something that's been portrayed on screen fairly frequented in recent years (films like 2012, Battle: Los Angeles and Skyline all come to mind). However, one would hope this movie is better than all of those movies combined. Which shouldn't be too difficult.
Clisham is a Lightstorm Entertainment employee who worked on Avatar as well as the recent Titanic 3D. Bayman has produced a slew of short films over the last few years according to his IMDB page. This seems like it'll mark the feature film debut for both.
Considering that, how big do you think Warner Bros. makes this? I'd imagine they'd wait to see a script and, if it's good, move Clisham and Bayman to executive producers. The idea is just so big and commercial, unless it could be made on the cheap, it's hard to imagine them entrusting the film to relative newcomers. Then again, it was also being conceptualized for online, so maybe it has some sort of aspect that automatically reigns it in.
Speculation is fun. What do you think? And what are some alternative pitch quotes for this film?