When Jurassic Park became the first Hollywood film to be dubbed in Hindi, it changed the face of the Indian box office with its huge impact by opening up the market for foreign films in 1994. It also led to an Indian connect with Steven Spielberg via the wonders of fax machine technology.
Over three decades later, the franchise has set a new milestone with the first ever premiere – held on 3 July 2025 – of a Hindi dubbed Hollywood release in India. Jurassic World Rebirth saw a spectacular premiere at the iconic Raj Mandir cinema in Jaipur which has hosted many such events for Hindi films. The strategy by the film’s distributors Universal Pictures/Warner Bros was unique in tapping into the 31 year history of the Jurassic franchise in India. That included how Spielberg sent a message for the readers of Connect magazine who chose him as entertainer of the year in 1994 thanks to the massive success of Jurassic Park in India.
Connect co-founder Nyay Bhushan was invited to the Jaipur premiere alongwith one of the co-founders Namrata B Durgan. In an interaction with digital creator Nagma Mirajkar, Nyay shared how, one late night in 1994, he cold-called the Universal Pictures board number in LA and told the lady on the other side that he was calling from India. “You’re calling from Indiana?”, she asked quizzically. “No, India,” clarified Nyay and then explained why Connect wanted a message from Spielberg. She referred Nyay to Spielberg’s international communications manager in London and gave him his fax number (yup, these were pre-internet times). Nyay faxed the request and got an immediate response saying that they’d be happy to share a message. And sure enough, a day later a fax curled out of the machine with Spielberg’s message.
More details here and how Connect evolved into Connectment.
The Jurassic Jaipur event was one for the books in how an iconic theatre like Raj Mandir – which has been witness to some of Hindi cinema’s record breaking hits – was now hosting an audience which grew up with the Jurassic franchise.
Despite all the turbulence with theatrical releases in these digital times, it is experiences like these that prove how the communal joy of watching a movie in a single screen 70mm theatre with a thousand seat capacity is unmatched.
Connectment Films 