Lost Pitch Trailer for the Cancelled ‘Escape From Jurassic Park’ Animated Series Finally Surfaces

‘Jurassic Park’ was much more than a blockbuster movie when it arrived in 1993. Universal quickly turned Steven Spielberg’s dinosaur adventure into a massive brand, complete with a Kenner action figure line, and plans were also underway to bring the story to television as an animated series.

That show, titled ‘Escape From Jurassic Park’, never made it to air. For decades, it has been one of the franchise’s best-known pieces of lost media, known mostly through concept art and stories from the people who worked on it.

Now fans can finally see what might have been. A pitch trailer for ‘Escape From Jurassic Park’ surfaced online on Halloween, shared by Jurassic fan accounts including Chris Pugh, and ComicBook.com reported that internal Kenner documents were posted alongside it.

The trailer features detailed animation of both dinosaurs and human characters. In one striking shot, the camera pushes in on a dinosaur’s enormous eye, with jungle trees reflected in its glowing orange iris.

An animated series titled ‘ESCAPE FROM JURASSIC PARK’ was in development in 1993 before eventually being cancelled. The pitch trailer has been released. https://t.co/UmiUYw1AMx

— ComicBook.com (@ComicBook) October 31, 2026

It also shows a new ‘Jurassic Park’ logo that swaps the famous T. rex skeleton for a living dinosaur. One fan who shared the footage said the tape had circulated privately among a small group of collectors for years before finally reaching the public.

The series was developed by Universal Cartoon Studios with veteran animator Will Meugniot overseeing the project, and planned for 23 episodes. Artist William Stout was brought on to design the characters and dinosaurs.

Stout has said the show was aimed at a more mature audience rather than young children, designed for prime-time television with a graphic-novel look. The trailer reportedly mixed CGI with traditional animation.

The story would have picked up after the film, with John Hammond reclaiming Isla Nublar and eventually opening the park to the public by the end of the first season. Characters from the film, including Alan Grant and Ian Malcolm, would have joined a team of heroes called the Dino Trackers.

The villains would have come from rival company BioSyn. In the planned storyline, BioSyn steals dinosaur eggs to build its own South American attraction, “DinoWorld,” complete with hotels and a monorail.

The show would also have introduced a team of mercenaries called the Dino Raiders, capturing dinosaurs for profit. One proposed episode, “Brachiosaurs on Broadway,” involved poachers hunting dinosaurs in Central Park.

A new era is born. Watch the Jurassic World Rebirth trailer now. https://t.co/JbTsCK9NMm

— Jurassic World (@JurassicWorld) February 5, 2025

New creatures were also planned, including a fanged Lycaenops and an Ornithosuchus. Many of these ideas later became known through a story treatment published by Jurassic Outpost in 2016.

Kenner documents shared with the trailer include a letter dated June 18, 1993, connecting the cartoon to Kenner’s second series of ‘Jurassic Park’ action figures. Despite that toy tie-in, the project never moved forward and was abandoned in 1994.

According to Stout, the trailer was made for Spielberg’s approval, but the director never signed off. Stout has said Spielberg was tired of the commercialism and merchandising around the film, and the show was scrapped as a result.

The franchise did eventually make it to animated television. ‘Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous’ and ‘Jurassic World: Chaos Theory’ later brought the dinosaurs to animated series for a new generation.

For longtime fans, though, this trailer offers a look at a darker, more ambitious version of the franchise that almost happened. After more than 3 decades, one of the series’ biggest lost media mysteries has finally been solved.

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