We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (film)

We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story
In the middle of a city street lie several floating balloons, a background audience, and multiple characters upfront. There are four prehistoric reptiles, including (from left to right) a green Parasaurolophus, an orange Tyrannosaurus Rex, a purple Pterodactyl, and a blue Triceratops. There is also a green alien in the middle-to-top-left, a boy and a girl together in the middle-to-bottom-left, and a man between the Tyrannosaurus' legs.
Theatrical release poster by Drew Struzan[1]
Directed by
Screenplay byJohn Patrick Shanley
Based onWe're Back! A Dinosaur's Story
by Hudson Talbott
Produced by
Starring
Edited by
Music byJames Horner
Production
companies
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date
  • November 24, 1993 (1993-11-24)
Running time
71 minutes[2]
CountriesUnited States
United Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget$20 million[citation needed]
Box office$9.3 million

We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story is a 1993 animated adventure comedy film directed by Dick Zondag, Ralph Zondag, Phil Nibbelink, and Simon Wells from a screenplay by John Patrick Shanley. Based on the 1987 Hudson Talbott children's book of the same name, it tells the story of three dinosaurs and one pterosaur who travel to the present day and become intelligent by eating a "Brain Grain" cereal invented by scientist Captain Neweyes. The film was produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblimation studio and features the voices of John Goodman, Felicity Kendal, Charles Fleischer, Walter Cronkite, Jay Leno, Julia Child, Kenneth Mars, Yeardley Smith, and Martin Short.

It was released by Universal Pictures on November 24, 1993; it was marketed as the more family-friendly equivalent of Spielberg's Jurassic Park, which was released in June of the same year. The film was a box-office bomb, grossing $9.3 million worldwide, and received mixed reviews from critics: while its animation, score, and voice performances were praised, most criticisms targeted its story, pacing, and lack of character development.

  1. ^ "We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story". Drew Struzan. Archived from the original on November 22, 2010. Retrieved April 7, 2021.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Nytimes was invoked but never defined (see the help page).