Behind The Scenes

The Lost Opening of The Lost World: The Story of the Dead Parasaurolophus

Character effects artist Paul Mejias reveals the story behind a massive, shark-bitten Parasaurolophus practical model built for a scrapped opening scene in The Lost World: Jurassic Park.

June 4, 2026

The Lost Opening of The Lost World: The Story of the Dead Parasaurolophus

If you're a hardcore Jurassic Park fan, you probably know the franchise is a treasure trove of "what-ifs"—script drafts that never saw the light of day, deleted scenes, and scrapped dinosaur designs. But one of the most fascinating pieces of lost lore from the 1997 sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, is a massive, fully constructed, practical dinosaur that never appeared on screen.

In this behind-the-scenes excerpt from Jurassic Party Part 2: The Lost World Dinosaur Crew Reunion, character effects artist Paul Mejias talks about bringing one of the movie's unused concepts to life at Stan Winston Studio: a dead Parasaurolophus.

To watch the Behind the Lost World: Jurassic Park's Dead Parasaurolophus video from Jurassic Party Part 2, click the player above!

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The Scrapped Jurassic Park 2 Opening Scene
Designing and Building the Dead Parasaurolophus
The Parasaurolophus Cameo in Jurassic Park III
When Time Stood Still for The Lost World: Jurassic Park

The Scrapped Jurassic Park 2 Opening Scene

The Lost World opens with a little girl being attacked by Compsognathus (Compy) on a beach. But Steven Spielberg originally had a much grittier, moodier opening sequence in mind. "There was an original opening where the film was going to open with a dinosaur caught in a Japanese boat fishing net,” said Paul Meijas. “A Japanese fishing troller was going to pull up this dead Parasaurolophus. And of course, I got the opening sequence of the film. I was so excited. It was going to be awesome."

(The miniature version of the dead Parasaurolophus in a fishing net at Stan Winston Studio.)

"Spielberg wanted a shark bite taken out of it," noted Meijas. "There was going to be crabs, and seaweed hanging off of it. And then the net breaks, and it falls back into the ocean. The movie starts. Got cut out of the film, but we got to build it anyway."

(The work-in-progress life-size dead Parasaurolophus at Stan Winston Studio.)

Designing and Building the Dead Parasaurolophus

Even though the Parasaurolophus never made it into The Lost World's opening scene, the Stan Winston Studio team still built the massive creature, basing it on Mark 'Crash' McCreery's design. "Crash's drawing was beautiful. It mapped out the side profile, but I got to kind of work out all the other angles," added Meijas.

(Parasaurolophus concept artwork by Mark 'Crash' McCreery for The Lost World: Jurassic Park.)

Size comparison of various 'The Lost World' dinosaurs, including the Parasaurolophus. (Size comparison of various 'The Lost World' dinosaurs, including the Parasaurolophus.)

"Tim Gore was the lead painter on it," noted Meijas. "And I had a great sculpting team. I'm forgetting everybody [unfortunately]. Ken Brilliant, Ian Stevenson, Rob Ramsdell."

(The understructure of the life-size dead Parasaurolophus between Rob Ramsdell (left) and Kevin McTurk (right) is ready for the clay build-up.)

Because it was meant to be tangled in a commercial fishing net, the dinosaur was sculpted in a very specific, contorted position.

(The life-size clay sculpture of the dead Parasaurolophus.)

"So, it's in the pose of what it would be as if the net was dragging it out of the way," said Maijas. "That's why he has an odd pose there because it actually needed a net to kind of like make it make sense."

(Tim Gore paints the life-size dead Parasaurolophus at Stan Winston Studio.)

(A close-up of the "shark-bitten" belly section on the dead Parasaurolophus.)

The team even built a miniature silicone maquette of the dinosaur trapped in a net to test the physics of the shot.

(Tim Gore works on the miniature silicone maquette of the dead Parasaurolophus.)

The Parasaurolophus Cameo in Jurassic Park III

While the shark-bitten Parasaurolophus never made it into The Lost World, its assets didn't entirely go to waste. Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) used Mejias's physical maquette as the digital blueprint to build their 3D models for the sequence where InGen ropes a Parasaurolophus to the ground.

(Paul Meijas sculpts the miniature Parasaurolophus maquette, which was used as the guide for ILM to build the 3D geometry for the 3D model.)

Furthermore, the concept of the dead Parasaurolophus returned to the franchise. As Mejias noted, "But it came back in [Jurassic Park] III, right? It came back... as a dead Parasaurolophus." (A carcass can briefly be seen in Jurassic Park III during the Spinosaurus vs. T-Rex territory segment).

(The finished miniature Parasaurolophus maquette at Stan Winston Studio.)

When Time Stood Still for The Lost World: Jurassic Park

Looking back on his time, Mejias doesn't hold any bitterness about the scene being cut. Instead, he looks back on the project as a golden era of filmmaking, when artists were given the time and resources to achieve absolute perfection.

(Painting the dead Parasaurolophus at Stan Winston Studio.)

"But what can I say? It was fun from day one to the last day. It was sculpting dinosaurs for a Spielberg film," said Meijas. "I mean, it was just great. I have nothing but happy memories of it all and having a fun time, and somehow I don't know if this is a complaint, but somehow I feel like we had enough time to build everything back then. Now it feels a little different these days, but back then it just seemed like we had enough time to make it perfect. And I miss that, you know."

Video below: The FULL Jurassic Party Part 2: The Lost World Dinosaur Crew Reunion

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