THIS AIN’T NO WALK IN THE PARK.
We at Kaiju United have been extremely excited for the upcoming flick Primitive War since the announcement that filming had commenced. In fact, it might be one of, if not THE most anticipated film of 2025 for us. Throughout each update, we have provided our loyal KU readers and followers with as many details as possible. Recently, we got to sit down with the film’s writer, producer, and director, Luke Sparke, to learn all about the film and its production. Read or watch below and find out how the movie was made, plus what to expect when it finally releases! There just might be some news on when to expect a teaser…
Special thanks to Avery Guerra & Sparke Films.
Jacob Lyngle: Hello, Kaiju United! I’m here with Luke Sparke, the director and writer of Primitive War, an upcoming dinosaur war film. There’s a lot of buzz going around! Luke, did you want to go ahead and introduce yourself?
Luke Sparke: Yeah, sure. I’m the director of Primitive War. This is my sixth or seventh feature film. I’m sort of an up-and-coming director down here in Australia. I’ve directed Sci-Fi movies, crime movies, and more. My background before directing films has been working mainly for historical military films in the behind the scenes costume & art department. I’ve worked on Steven Spielberg’s The Pacific, X-Men Origins: Wolverine with Hugh Jackman, and a bunch of others out here. I’ve always wanted to direct films and I used all my on set knowledge to launch myself back in 2014 into directing. I’ve been doing it ever since!
JL: Seems like your background in military costume design & art direction has prepared you for Primitive War.
LS: Absolutely, it’s where I came from. Interestingly, I haven’t actually directed a war film yet. I wanted to wait for the right time, because they’re very hard to do, and I wasn’t going to do something half-assed as my first one. So this is the first one. Of course, the market trends and everything changes over time. For example, the 90’s were great for war films after Saving Private Ryan, but since then, it’s dipped a little bit recently. But, combining dinosaurs with war for this project I thought was a great launching point and a good sell.
JL: How did Primitive War come to fruition? Did you read the book by Ethan Pettus one day and become invested in the story?
LS: Honestly, it was just by chance. I was just scrolling through social media one night, and there was an ad that popped up. I believe it was for the comic, or the Kickstarter for the comic, something like that. The cover art was the main character, Baker, fighting Utahraptor in the jungle. I was like, “What is this?” It peaked my interest immediately, so I clicked on it and read about it. I ordered the book and read it, and later, I got in touch with Ethan throughout that period and said that I was interested. At the time, I had another author that was pitching me another book, not similar, but with creatures, very different to this one, but it was either one or the other. I had a meeting with the team here at Sparke films, and sort of did a big pitch meeting about current, up and coming productions that I’m working on. I was like, you can have this, or you can have that. Everyone liked the Primitive War idea, and it fit with our business. As I said earlier, it fit with my past and everything else. After our decision we negotiated with Ethan, we got the rights, and I started to write the script.
JL: Australia has got quite the film industry going on with iconic directors like George Miller. Are there any stark differences between the Australian film industry and the traditional Hollywood model, or is everything kind of the same?
LS: Generally, it’s all the same in the film industry. Obviously out here it’s a little different, and that’s why a lot of blockbusters come out here to film. Some of that is because it’s not as unionized; it’s not as hardline as it is shooting in America. Everyone out here kind of just gets the job done – the crew are kind of known just to get in and get it done. People like Chris Hemsworth and George Miller have always commented that our crew out here is just remarkable. Everyone helps out and makes it all happen, no matter what. That’s true on any independent feature, even in America.
But even on the bigger jobs that I’ve been on over here, the crew are definitely laid back a lot more but still get the jobs done. This film might be a larger independent film, but at the end of the day, we have to rely on each other as we were making it and bring in people that just wanted to see it get done the right way.
JL: Tell us a bit about the real sets and filming on location you utilized in this production. What were some of the challenges of physically being there? What were some of the biggest challenges?
LS: Honestly, every challenge is the answer. We made a conscious decision early on – I was mentioning this to another interview that I did recently – if you look at the first Jurassic Park movie, which is amazing, still as a piece of filmmaking and the effects and everything else, but the iconic T Rex attack on the cars in that film was done in a specialized studio. That’s because of the rig of the gigantic Tyrannosaurus rex animatronic; it had to be in the studio at all times. So we made a conscious decision to go film this on location, to make everything as real as it can be. What flows on from that, obviously, is then the question of, “How do we bring dinosaurs to in the middle of a valley, set, or quite frankly, in the middle of the jungle?”
So the big challenge for us was to get to these remote locations and film them as per the book, as per what happens in the story. The soldiers being stuck in the valley in the middle of nowhere, and they can’t get out of it. Through that, yeah, every challenge comes up. For instance, in the jungle, you got rain. Of course, every film hits this problem. As soon as you go to shoot, suddenly it’s like, oh, a massive storm’s coming. Oh, it’s the rainy season. It’s unpredictable weather. That happened to us a couple of times – we had a week where we were like, the furthest out that we went into for the shoot. We were at this valley that no one has ever been into, basically, and the roads that we had to build to navigate around completely just turned to mud. We couldn’t get up the hill.
There were conversations on unit base every day just saying, like, are we just going to pull the pen? Are we going somewhere else? Everyone’s flipping out and freaking out, and as a director/lead on set you have to be strong. I’m the Executive Producer of this movie, I’m the Director, I’m the editor, I’m the production designer. I’m doing all these different things. I was the one everyone was turning to. My other producer, who’s also the first Assistant Director, and I just had to stay strong and lead the team and make sure that everyone knows what’s going on. In addition, we had to quickly think on our feet and ensure the crew does the same.
Some of us were like, what if we moved over here for a little bit while we got the roads built, and when we come back and the road’s fixed, and we go back to that spot. It was just a really, really hard couple of weeks to be able to do all this, but it looks great on camera. As you can see from the BTS, it looks really good. When we sat back in the edit room, we were like, oh, at least it was worth it.
Funny thing – we eventually brought in some actual military trucks, like eight wheeler, massive trucks that just that don’t get bogged. We had to bring them in specifically just to load cameras on them. That took ages to load. Everyone was loading cameras, makeup and equipment onto this truck, and then the truck would go up the hill to where we were waiting with the actors. When we got everything off, I was like, let’s just shoot. Let’s hurry up and shoot.
JL: In promo material, you speak about emulating the grittiness and realism of a war film. Did you watch any Vietnam/war films or look at Vietnam materials/resources to prepare for this shoot?
LS: Platoon and Apocalypse Now were the two sort of go-to movies visually from me, as I was referencing it, throughout pre-production. I was also able to bring in people I’ve worked with, like Captain Dale Dye, who did the military advising and co-wrote Platoon with Oliver Stone. He also did Private Ryan, the Band of Brothers, and The Pacific. I’ve worked with him a couple of times, and I was able to utilize my connections with him so that he could give a look at the script. Since he’s a Vietnam veteran too, I had him look at the script, minus the dinosaur factor. I said, “Hey, can you just focus on, you know, the military factor and give me some notes. You can give me any advice.” And he went through the script and the book, and he was like, “This wouldn’t happen. That wouldn’t happen.” While you have to sort of say, well, it’s a dinosaur movie, I wanted to make sure that it was as real as it can be for veterans, because these guys are representing real people who would be in the military in Vietnam, so we don’t want to make a mockery of them either. So that was important to me – keeping those guys involved and making sure that everything was correct.
JL: Many fans are interested in the promotional materials stating your intent to have “more scientifically accurate dinosaurs” in the film. As we know, science is always evolving, so many of us are intrigued by where you draw the line with the scientific aspects. Can you comment on that?
LS: It was definitely something I kept saying on set. I kept saying that to people throughout the production, as we want to make sure that, you know, these dinosaurs aren’t cloned. They’re not DNA harvested unlike other movies… obviously we know which one that is. (laughs) The Sci Fi factor of this movie, and the book, is that these animals have been transported from the Cretaceous Period, right? There’s been this weird science experiment that has brought these creatures to our time, to the jungles of Vietnam. They’re supposed to just have been walking through. Now, of course, like you said, the caveat to that is when Jurassic Park came out, that was kind of like the most up to date science at the time. They had the T-Rex in the right position with the tail when previously it was dragging on the ground from the 1930s through the 1980s.
I wanted to make it as accurate as I could, given what we know now. I spoke to Ethan, and in the book, the T-Rex has feathers. I know at the time there was a conversation about that, and then I think now the scientific community thinks that T-Rex probably didn’t have feathers, like its portrayal in Prehistoric Planet. I had to make these choices, and as a director & filmmaker, you have to make a million choices a day – little micro decisions – that all end up adding to the sum of the whole.
JL: Were there practical effects utilized for the dinosaurs in this movie?
LS: Yep. Actually, that’s been a big question online. My thought process is, anything I can do to bring realism to the shoot for the actors, I will do. If that means a practical effect for reference, we will do it. I’ve done some Creature Feature films in the past with practical effects to various degrees of success. I had this conversation the other day with someone – sometimes I feel like the internet or the culture we live in, because we all grew up in the era of incredible movies with great special effects like Aliens or Jurassic Park, is very passionate about those practical effects. Don’t get me wrong, those films are absolutely amazing, but you know, we’re an indie production. If I could have Stan Winston build me a T-Rex, you bet I would have that. I know how much that stuff costs, and I know there are definitely some really talented people out there, even in Australia, that do those kinds of effects and everything. But unless you’re pushing the boundaries and you can really make it look 100% real, I feel like the question should be: “How can we make the shot real?”
In my mind, I did as much as I could practically. There is some stuff that I did practically in the shoot that I’ve already gone, yeah, I don’t know, because I’m holding this film and holding myself to a high standard to make this the best movie it can be.
I’ve actually got a funny story from the set regarding the practical effects. It scared the bejesus out of me. We had a practical Utahraptor created for the film in some scenes. I gave the puppeteers directions for the scene, and I closed the doors to head back through the set to go talk to the actors. I was like, okay, so when it says action, you’re going to pop out and you can do the thing. I’m talking to the puppet raptor that just keeps nodding its head and not the guy. (laughs) After that, I walk back through the door, and then the puppet just burst through with this massive sound. It was like right behind me, and I literally jumped and almost touched the roof and had a heart attack. I couldn’t breathe for like five minutes! All of the cast and crew were cracking up because I wasn’t expecting it.
I can attest that we did have some practical stuff on set. Now, when you have guys, as you can see in the BTS, falling down hills in the middle of valleys and everything else… how do you fit a practical T-Rex in there? I think even the best Hollywood production would have to have that discussion. To make everything truly real, I think shooting on real sets really help. I can say there was nothing green screened, to my knowledge, in this movie. Everything we shot was real- the Russian bases were built for the film, the jungles. Even when we had to CG something, we had real references to make it real. We had dirt flying up, real scenery… it all helps to add to that layer of realism for the shot.
JL: Can you tell us anything about a trailer or a release date at this time?
LS: I can say that a teaser trailer is going to come out in early 2025. At the time of this recording we’re working on it. I can also say that I want the film to come out before the middle of the year. What I want and what I get might be two different things, but that’s the goal!
JL: Without spoilers, were there any significant changes going from book to movie, aside from the fact that you’re switching mediums? Perhaps you added or removed a dinosaur, or introduced a new element?
LS: I think there’s concessions either way. I think there’s some dinosaurs there in the book that might not make the movie. There’s some dinosaurs that may be in the sequel books that might make the movie. I mean, there’s no point thinking about a sequel. I always think that we should just shoot the shot & make this one the best it can be. There’s no point thinking about the future right now, we’re in the present. Ethan came over here while we were filming it, too. He read the script, I think, while he was over here – without speaking for him – he rang me up, or we spoke next day on set, and he said, “Hey, a lot of people asking me… is it like the Jurassic Park novel, where it’s very different from book to movie?” Like I said, without speaking for him, he was pretty surprised and happy with the way that the story plays out in the script. I would think it’s a pretty faithful adaptation, given that this has to be trimmed up, making it so it’s a two hour picture. It definitely feels like a two hour roller coaster through the jungle, that’s for sure.
JL: Just for fun… is Utahraptor your favorite dinosaur, or is there a different one you’re particularly fond of?
LS: I’m going to have to say the T-Rex because I just love them. But the Utahraptor is definitely up there; I definitely have a soft spot for that specific raptor. Just like in this book and Jurassic Park, they’re kind of the villains of the story. They’re real nasty creatures.
JL: For those who want to enter the film industry, be it your path or another, what is your biggest piece of advice?
LS: I always say… just get on a film set. Personally, I never went to film school. I mean, you can go to school, you can go do all that, and you can be really successful. Some people have. Some people haven’t. My biggest thing is just getting on a film set, because once you’re there, if you love movies, like you do, and I do, because I love movies too, you’ll do great. I’ve been on plenty of film sets.
When I first got into my first Hollywood feature film, which was a military movie called The Great Raid, it blew my mind walking around, just being like… this is amazing. Look at all this stuff. It is true, you have crew members who are not film fans. They’re just career crew people that work on films. Not all of them, but some of them are sitting in the back, and just they’re kind of like, maybe the love of the films are gone; this is just a job and whatever. I’m there, like, oh my God, look at this. They’re doing this, and they’re doing that. I still do that to this day, even on my own film sets, I geek out just standing back and looking at what’s going on and the constructed chaos that happens on the film set. So my biggest thing is just to get on the film set, even if you’re a runner or an art department guy. You can learn way more on a film set than you can in most other avenues – such as film school, online courses, and the likes, because you’re there and living it. You can feel the chaos happening; you can feel it in you. You can watch & talk with people who have been living it too, for instance, when I worked on The Pacific, I had lots of conversations with their DP [Director of Photography] just, you know, randomly, whenever I could. I would just stay there holding a costume, and he’d be there waiting for a shot, and I’d inquire like, hey, let’s talk about this camera & what you’re doing over here! I really thank people for talking and taking the time to talk to me, because it’s led to where I am today. Again, get on that film set, and if you love it, you’ll find your place.
JL: What is your message to everyone waiting for Primitive War? What can fans of dinosaur movies expect from this film?
LS: Like I said earlier, we’re not a Hollywood film. We’re big in the production, but we care. So I hope people get out and support it when it does come out, because we’re going to launch it as big as we possibly can. I think it definitely deserves to be seen on the big screen, because I’m sitting here in my other room watching it on my big screen – we’ve got a great sound mix department. They’re doing Dolby Atmos. So we’re going like, you know, all guns blazing for this, to hear it, to see it. So, hope they come out and support it and follow it as the journey happens next year.
Something to look forward to is going to be a really cool teaser trailer that’s going to come out sooner than later, followed by more BTS, followed by, of course, the main trailer. We’ll probably end up doing a tour around America with cast and crew and special screenings, and potentially even some dinosaur actors coming along for the ride. We’ll wait and see what happens there. But that’s the plan currently. So yeah, a lot to look forward to!
JL: Thank you for taking the time to talk with Kaiju United.
LS: No worries! Anytime.
