The original crate that housed a Velociraptor in Jurassic Park is for sale on Ebay. Theme Park Connection, an Orlando-based company, listed the movie prop online, and so far the prop has received bids up to $100,000.
Velociraptors may be long extinct, but the crate that held the prehistoric killers in “Jurassic Park” is up for sale.
Theme Park Connection, an Orlando-based company that resells Disney souvenirs and movie props, listed the original crate from the opening scene of Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film on Ebay earlier this week.
Within hours of the item being listed for sale, interested buyers from around the world began bidding on the crate. The listing has been viewed more than 600,000 times with the highest bid at just shy of $100,000.
“The auction…has gone viral, which is something we did not expect at all,” said Brian Ramsey, manager of Theme Park Connection, which has a store in south Orange County off Orange Blossom Trail.
More than 150 bids have been made so far, and bidding ends on Feb. 5.
In addition to the crate, the winning bidder will also receive a replica Velociraptor, which was produced for display at the film’s premiere. Ramsey said the raptor fits in the crate “perfectly.”
Theme Park Connection aquired the 8-foot tall, 1,500-pound, wood and metal crate earlier this year from a movie prop collector in California. The crate was stored outside and does have some wear and tear on it, Ramsey said.
But that hasn’t stopped people from “going insane over it,” said Ben Pullen, Theme Park Connection internet sales manager.
“I knew that we really had something special that people were going to go nuts about,” he said.
For anyone who grew up in the 1990s, “Jurassic Park” is one of those iconic cinema-going experience, Pullen said. And the crate starts it off.
In the opening scene, a group of Jurassic Park employees are shown moving the crate – with a raptor inside – into a pen. The raptor breaks free and attacks. The scene ends with Robert Muldoon (played by Bob Peck) yelling, “SHOOT HER! SHOOT HER!”.
“That opening scene, especially with the Velociraptor crate, is for so many people one of the most memorable scenes from the movie,” Pullen said.
When the bidding concludes next week, the crate will become the most valuable movie prop ever sold by Theme Park Connection.
The winning bidder can pick up the crate where it’s being stored in the Los Angeles area, Ramsey said, or it can be shipped it for a fee.
“I hope it goes to a good home to someone who will restore it,” Pullen said.
In addition to the crate, Theme Park Connection is also selling the mobile lab RV and trailer from 1997’s “The Lost World: Jurassic Park”.
The current bid for the RV is $8,600.