Jurassic star calls new movie sensational
( 2001-05-11 15:19 ) (7 )

Steven Spielberg passed on directing it and at least five screenwriters have been involved in the script. But Sam Neill, star of the eagerly-awaited summer blockbuster "Jurassic Park III", said on Thursday some of the finished scenes are "completely sensational."

Neill, who reprises his role as dinosaur expert Dr Alan Grant, said that post-production work was frantically underway to meet the movie's mid-July release date.

"It is coming together incredibly well. I was doing some voice work for it yesterday and I've seen cut sequences from it," Neill told Reuters in an interview. "I haven't seen the whole film, but the stuff I saw was completely sensational. It just takes your breath away," he said.

Neill, a star of "The Horse Whisperer" and "The Piano," was in Los Angeles promoting his forthcoming NBC television film "Submerged" which is based on the real-life rescue in 1939 of American sailors from a sunken submarine.

Spielberg, who directed the first "Jurassic Park" in 1993 and the sequel "The Lost World," decided to produce rather than direct the latest multimillion dollar adventure which is set on Isla Sorna four years after the events of "The Lost World."

Five screenwriters have been associated with "Jurassic Park III" which is directed by visual effects specialist Joe Johnston and has been dogged by rumors of budget overruns and frantic rewriting during shooting last year.

Neill, however, said working on the movie had been "really fun."

"We had a great director called Joe Johnston who we all loved. He brought a completely fresh pair of eyes to all this. Joe has a wonderful sense of mischief and it's that kind of wicked sense of fun that is exactly what you need for a movie like this," the New Zealand-raised actor said.