'Rampage' Director On Video Game Influences, Accidental 'Jurassic Park' Homage

Rampage is full of destruction, fun, and giant monsters but it also contains a coincidental homage [...]

Rampage is full of destruction, fun, and giant monsters but it also contains a coincidental homage to Jurassic Park.

In a scene which sees Dwayne Johnson running along the side of a collapsed building, the overgrown and menacing crocodile referred to as Lizzie is giving chase. It slithers its way beneath the building, providing a moment for its giant eye to be lined up with Johnson's Davis Okoye character through a window pane. The moment which clearly reflects Jurassic Park's T-Rex peeking through a Jeep's window at Ariana Richards' Lex.

"It was not intentional as an homage," Rampage director Brad Peyton told ComicBook.com. "The moment was intentional but I wasn't thinking like, 'Oh, that's Jurassic Park!"

During a press conference, Peyton opened up about his love for giant monster movies which shaped his efforts on Rampage, despite trying to make a wholly unique film with his own style. "I didn't watch monster movies that I've already seen," Peyton said. "I've seen all those movies, I love all of those movies, so when I said 'Yes, I'm gonna go do this,' I didn't go watch any of it. I knew that stuff would come out! It was completely unintentional."

As it turns out, monster movies weren't the only thing Peyton was honoring which his popcorn flick. The film is based on the classic Rampage video game, which allowed the director to go in just about any direction with his characters and story, while also satisfying fans of the game.

"Luckily, for me, the game didn't have a lot of story or mythology, so I was like, okay, I don't have to worry about that so much," Peyton said. "I thought the game offered a certain tone to it; it was a little silly and fun. But I thought you definitely have to do three creatures: a gorilla, it was more of a lizard in the game but I wanted to ground it so croc, and a wolf. Then, we put Easter eggs in: woman in the red dress, smashing a building, George eating somebody... I was like, 'I feel like we've covered the game,' and once you do that, then I was like, 'We need to put some heart into this.' That was the relationship between George and Davis. Then, there was so much creative freedom, which is ultimately why I was like, 'Yeah, I can do something like this! If that's all I have to do to respect the game, great, we can destroy a bunch of stuff, we can do some cool sequences!' There's a lot of creative freedom."

The monsters are on display throughout Rampage, never being hidden by the cloak of darkness or lurking around a corner waiting to pop out. "You see all these movies where everything happens at night," Peyton said. "It was one of the things I thought was really unique about the story. It's a monster movie that happens in the broad daylight!"

Rampage opens in theaters this weekend.

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