Primitive War Sends Vietnam War Soldiers Against Dinosaurs
If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to see a group of hardened soldiers fighting against a menagerie of giant prehistoric reptiles, you won’t have to wait long to see the action unfold on the theater screen. Primitive War is set to be released sometime in 2025 and promises epic combat between a search and rescue team sent deep into the jungles of Vietnam in hopes of locating a missing group of Green Berets. But their mission is upended when they stumble across living, carnivorous creatures that are right out of a paleontologist’s textbook.
Now, we have some first-look images of the film.
A War Movie Like Nothing Else
Primitive War sees the Vulture Squad come apart at the seams as the dinosaurs pick off members one by one, reducing the survivors to little more than animals themselves as they fight to survive the onslaught set upon them from the talons and snapping jaws of their jungle pursuers.
Apocalypse Now Meets Jurassic Park
The film seems to be an innovative mashup of Vietnam War sagas and dinosaur movies, akin to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now being bred with Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park and producing an offspring that’s soldier versus prehistoric killer. But the idea behind the upcoming film didn’t originate from a studio executive or a delirious screenwriter. Rather, Primitive War is based on original source material in the form of a 2017 novel of the same name by author Ethan Pettus.
Plenty Of Jurassic Park References
Pettus wrote the book in dedication to the late Jurassic Park author and penned numerous references to the book that inspired him throughout. And if the film adaptation of Primitive War remains true to the novel, the Vulture Squad soldiers will be facing off with dinosaurs that include triceratops, tyrannosaurus rex, utahraptor, microraptor, kaprosuchus, and many more.
Primitive War began its production earlier in 2024, with principal filming taking place in Australia. As zany as the concept and plot summary might sound, the movie attracted quite a few familiar faces across science fiction and horror films and television shows that will likely help draw out audiences for a better financial return for the studio and distributor.
The Cast
Primitive War will star Jeremy Piven (Old School), Ryan Kwanten (True Blood), Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica), and The Boys’ Nick Wechsler. It is also set to co-star Anthony Ingruber (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny), Jake Ryan (Underbelly), and Ana Thu Nguyen (Mortal Kombat 2).
Check Out Occupation: Rainfall First
Ethan Pettus and Luke Sparke share co-writing credits, with Sparke pulling double duty as Primitive War‘s director. The war/sci-fi movie won’t be Sparke’s first time at the helm of a sci-fi film, either. He was the talent behind a vastly underrated genre film in 2020 that most American audiences didn’t have on their radar.
Occupation: Rainfall was produced and released in Sparke’s native Australia to mostly positive reviews and carries a 60 percent aggregate score on Rotten Tomatoes. The film centers around human resistance two years after an alien invasion and occupation in Sydney. The movie starred Dan Ewing (Home and Away), Temuera Morrison (Shortland Street), and Ken Jeong (The Hangover, Role Models).
Sources: Bloody Disgusting
