June 1988, BBC Earth entered a deal with Evergreen Films, based in the United States, to produce a film featuring dinosaurs. By the following November, BBC Earth entered a deal with Reliance Big Entertainment to finance the production of three films, including Walking with Dinosaurs. The deal had initially attached Pierre de Lespinois of Evergreen Films and Neil Nightingale to co-direct the film. In 1988, the project began development in Evergreen live-action division in which De lespinois and nightigale had originally planned to use stop motion animation techniques such as puppets, scale models, 3d and 2d animation, Animatronics and miniatures.The film's original main protagonist was a Stegosaurus named Kun and the main antagonist was originally a Spinosaurus named Grokna, with a small bird and company named Fordest as a supporting character. The film was originally going to be much darker and violent in tone, in a style akin to a nature documentary. After Kun defeats Grokna in a final fight, the film would end with the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, which would ultimately result in the deaths of the main dinosaur characters. In 1990, producer/director Thomas G. Smith became the writer Then Barry cook ocuped the director chair
