Walking with Dinosaurs | |
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Theatrical release poster
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Directed by | |
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Written by | John Collee |
Starring | |
Music by | Paul Leonard-Morgan |
Cinematography | John Brooks |
Edited by |
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Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date
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Running time
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87 minutes |
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Language | English |
Budget | $80 million |
Box office | $126.5 million |
Walking with Dinosaurs is a 2013 family film about dinosaurs set in the Late Cretaceous period, 70 million years ago. The production features computer-animated dinosaurs in live-action settings with actors John Leguizamo, Justin Long, Tiya Sircar, and Skyler Stone providing voiceovers for the main characters. It was directed by Neil Nightingale and Barry Cook from a screenplay by John Collee.
The film was produced by BBC Earth and Evergreen Films and was titled after BBC's 1999 television documentary miniseries of the same name. The film, with a budget of US$80 million, was one of the largest independent productions to date; it was financed by Reliance Big Entertainment and IM Global instead of a major studio. The majority of distribution rights were eventually sold to 20th Century Fox. The crew filmed footage on location in the U.S. state of Alaska and in New Zealand, which were chosen for their similarities to the dinosaurs' surroundings millions of years ago. Animal Logic designed computer-animated dinosaurs and added them to the live-action backdrop. Though the film was originally going to lack narration or dialogue, 20th Century Fox executives decided to add voiceovers, believing it would connect audiences to the characters.
Walking with Dinosaurs premiered on 14 December 2013 at the Dubai International Film Festival. It was released in cinemas in 2D and 3D on 20 December 2013. Critics commended the film's visual effects but found its storytelling to be subpar and derided the voiceovers as juvenile. The film grossed US$36.1 million in the United States and Canada and US$90.5 million in other territories for a worldwide total of US$126.5 million. The Hollywood Reporter stated the film's global box office performance was disappointing in context of the production budget and marketing costs.