Bobby Kotick’s Bold Proposal: A Jurassic Park Game Delivered in a Dinosaur Egg
By Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick shared that he fervently desired the rights to create a Jurassic Park video game and crafted a bizarre yet creative proposal for filmmaker Steven Spielberg prior to the major film’s release.
During an appearance on the Grit podcast, Kotick described his pitch to Spielberg as “crazy” and noted that it was the only instance he approached Spielberg after hearing about the iconic director’s interest in video games.
Unfortunately, the proposal did not come to fruition. However, the story of Kotick’s endeavor remains a remarkable anecdote.
“I had a board member who was Spielberg’s attorney, and he reached out to me, saying – ‘Spielberg has an interest in video games, he enjoys them… we’ll contact you first’,” Kotick recounted.
“The only time I ever pitched anything else to Steven was when I genuinely wanted the rights to Jurassic Park. I was in communication with Michael Crichton and had read the manuscript, thinking ‘this could be a fantastic game’. So I contacted Michael and asked ‘what do I need to do to secure the game rights for this?’ He replied ‘you have to go through Spielberg; he owns the rights’.
“I developed… I had to craft a manuscript – our proposal was essentially a manuscript – detailing what we intended to create, and I placed it inside a dinosaur egg in a box,” Kotick shared. “I went all out. That was all I desired.
“I knew him [Spielberg], but I had all my contacts who were genuine associates of his reach out and say ‘you know, Bobby really wants to make this happen’. I called him up and asked ‘what do you think?’ And he responded saying ‘great pitch, great vision for what you want to do with the game’.
“He said ‘I truly want you to pursue this, I genuinely want you to pursue this, so go ahead and pay the