JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION ACTIVATION

THE BRIEF

Universal Pictures and Magic 14 needed to mark the release of Jurassic World Dominion with a live experience that matched the scale of the franchise. The brief was to bring a lifesize Giganotosaurus to three European capitals — London, Paris and Rome — using an 8mx8m LED screen, a forced-perspective illusion and a combination of real-time and pre-rendered assets to give visitors a visceral, up-close encounter with a creature from 65 million years ago. Territory was commissioned to transform ILM's original film asset into an experience that could function outdoors, in changing light, at multiple sites, for public audiences.

THE CREATIVE APPROACH

The technical challenge was significant and largely unprecedented. ILM's Giganotosaurus was built for cinema — a 2K or 4K frame on a controlled screen in a dark room. Scaling it for a daylit public space, on a screen visible from multiple angles, with forced-perspective requirements that changed depending on where a visitor was standing, required rebuilding the problem from the ground up.

Territory created a working 3D model of Trafalgar Square derived from film-quality LiDAR scans, imported into VR, to accurately judge alignment and viewing perspectives before the physical screen was installed. HDRI captures at each location simulated precise lighting conditions at different times of day. The original ILM model was cleaned up in Maya and Houdini to produce a photorealistic backplate and accurate terrain for the walking animation. The result was an illusion that had to hold up in full daylight, to uncontrolled crowd positions, with no second chances once the screen was live.

THE OUTCOME

The activation launched in Trafalgar Square and was subsequently replicated in Paris and Rome — generating widespread media coverage and social sharing that positioned the Jurassic World Dominion release as a cultural event rather than a marketing campaign. The Giganotosaurus became one of the most photographed and shared experiential moments of 2022. For Territory, the project demonstrated a capability rarely combined in a single studio: the technical depth to solve a genuine engineering challenge alongside the creative and production management skills to execute it across three international locations simultaneously.

Creative Director Andrew Popplestone · Client Universal Pictures · Assets Industrial Light & Magic · Locations Trafalgar Square, London · Paris · Rome · Studio Territory Studio