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Only one film franchise about killer dinosaurs became successful and popular in the 1990s, and it most certainly was not Carnosaur. Back then, the timing seemed unfortunate for this now-infamous Roger Corman production; Steven Spielberg’s megahit-in-the-making was hot on its tail and, of course, Jurassic Park eventually went on to overshadow Adam Simon’s own story of engineered dinos. As Cormanites know, Corman was not about to let some bad press stand in the way; Carnosaur used the “mockbuster” accusations for its own gain. And more importantly, all the eyes on Corman’s cash-in gave its source material a much-needed second lease on life.

Carnosaur was boldly put in theaters a week before Jurassic Park, however, John Brosnan’s novel actually predated Michael Crichton’s by a good six years. Written under the pseudonym of Harry Adam Knight, 1984’s Carnosaur was well ahead of its time and, unfortunately, fell through the cracks after flopping.

Quick Links How Jurassic Park Created the Carnosaur Series When Jurassic Park Came Down With a Case of Prehysteria! What Jurassic Park's Mockbusters Say About the Franchise Jurassic Park is one of the most influential movies in cinematic history. Expected to be a blockbuster hit, other studios attempted to create their own Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park's popularity inspired two cult classic franchises that took on a life of their own.

Jurassic Park remains one of the most influential movies in history, but retrospectives often overlook the bizarre knockoffs it inspired. There's no understating Jurassic Park's impact on pop culture and numerous attempts to replicate its success. Before the film hit theaters and launched a major franchise, movies were already trying to cash in on Jurassic Park's projected popularity. While many saw these dinosaur-inspired mockbusters for what they were, no one could have predicted how they'd develop...

Universal Pictures keeps on pumping out Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies and cartoons – in fact, another Jurassic World movie will be reaching theatres in 2025, and there are two seasons of the animated series Jurassic World: Chaos Theory dropping onto the Netflix streaming service this year. But while that’s all cool to have, one dinosaur series I wish had more installments is the Carnosaur franchise, which was produced by the late, great Roger Corman. The first Carnosaur (which was inspired by a novel written by Harry Adam Knight) was released in 1993 as a mockbuster alternative to Jurassic Park, and was followed by Carnosaur 2 in 1995 and Carnosaur 3: Primal Species in 1996. Sadly, while there were two spin-offs of sorts with Raptor in 2001 and The Eden Formula in 2006, we haven’t gotten an actual Carnosaur movie in almost thirty years, and no sort-of spin-offs in almost twenty years. While I...