Luke Sparke Interview | Primitive War (2025)

This month in the Movieland Spotlight, we sit down with acclaimed Australian writer and director Luke Sparke to discuss his latest project – the bold new indie dinosaur horror Primitive War.Starring Ryan Kwanten (True Blood), Jeremy Piven (Very Bad Things), Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica), and Nick Wechsler (Roswell), this R-rated thrill ride is a far cry from the family-friendly dinosaur blockbusters audiences might expect. Instead, Sparke leans into gritty realism, bone-crunching suspense, and a hard-hitting war setting to create something uniquely Australian and unapologetically intense.In our exclusive chat, Sparke opens up about the challenges of adapting Ethan Pettus’s cult novel, the delicate balance of casting international names alongside homegrown talent, and the joy of bringing prehistoric terror to life on Queensland’s wild terrain. He also speaks candidly about inevitable comparisons to Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, explaining how Primitive War deliberately sets itself apart as a film for older audiences who crave darker, bloodier dinosaur mayhem.Beyond the battlefields of Vietnam and the roar of dinosaurs, Sparke teases what lies ahead for his future projects – hinting at even bigger, more ambitious films to come from one of Australia’s most exciting genre directors.Primitive War In Cinemas Now!Spotlight is released early to help promote Primitive War's current cinema run but featured apart of the September movieland magazine.