When you think of a series like Prehistoric Planet 2, there are always going to be certain creatures you’re hoping to see in the journey ahead. While the sequel to the Apple TV+ series did bring back Tyrannosaurs and Velociraptors throughout its 2023 TV schedule debut, there were also some new kids on the prehistoric block. In fact, when digging into the details on this new season, there was a creature revealed to be so new, the series marked its first on-screen depiction.
My interview with executive producer Mike Gunton and showrunner Tim Walker covered subjects like how Avatar influenced the production of Prehistoric Planet 2. While Gunton and Walker were quite pleased with how they’d returned to the world of habitat-based storytelling, they were also ecstatic to introduce some new beasts to the world through their program. Here’s how they highlighted one particular newcomer, the Adalatherium, in their discussion with CinemaBlend:
Tim Walker: "We brought in some animals that were very new to science. In particular, in the first episode, we feature this wonderful mammal called Adalatherium, which was only described in 2020, when we were embarking on the second season. So we quickly brought that in. And we see this wonderful world is not just about the dinosaurs, it’s about so many other creatures that lived alongside them."
Mike Gunton: "As you would in any natural history. You’re trying to represent a world. And of course if you went today and filmed, you wouldn’t just do mammals. You wouldn’t just do the superstars, you also do birds, and reptiles, and fish, and insects, and plants. So we’re game in replicating that in Prehistoric Planet. Trying to paint a portrait of what it would be like to take the ultimate safari, if you were able to 66 million years ago, what would you see? Well, you’d see all this, and you’d want to see all this. You want to see the range and the oddities, but you also want to see the box office superstars. You definitely get to see a T-Rex on this safari, but some other stuff too."
Getting to show off the Adalatherium in the Prehistoric Planet 2 premiere, titled “Islands,” was one of the many perks that the production got to indulge in after being so close to the scientific community. Through the show’s balance of real science and CGI thrills which can be seen with an Apple TV+ subscription, Walker and Gunton won the trust of many specialists in the field, which helped give them access to information that, in some cases, wasn’t even published to the public.
With a name that roughly translates to “Crazy Beast,” we see this mammal that slightly resembles a badger roaming through this season's locales in the name of public education. This is just one of the new species Prehistoric Planet 2 gets to show off, in the name of Mike Gunton and Tim Walker giving the public a balance of new faces and old ones to look forward to.
One of our sibling sites, Live Science, spoke with the men about another new kid on the prehistoric block: the Tarchia. You’ll get to see those beauties in Episode 2, “Badlands,” and that’s part of the plan that the series had when pushing the envelope for Season 2. Here’s Tim Walker with more details on building “the ultimate safari” that is Prehistoric Planet 2:
One of the things we’re really proud of is we brought back a familiar cast of characters from Season 1 into Season 2. But we also brought 25 new characters as well. I say characters, because they’re not all dinosaurs. So we’ve got at least one new character for every episode, across these five new episodes. Some of whom have never been shown on screen before. We’ve got 50 or 60 new dinosaurs, and then we’ve got this whole host of other beasts that we introduce, Mammals we introduce, fish we introduce, birds we introduce; other reptiles and amphibians, and create this really rich world that’s built on what we saw in Season 1, and just push the ante in Season 2.
Don’t worry, Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor fans! The team behind Prehistoric Planet 2 probably wouldn’t think of themselves as producing one of the best Apple TV+ series if they omitted those fan favorites from the lot. In fact, both species get to appear in the opening of each episode, as narrator David Attenborough recounts the adventures of the previous season and how it leads to what we’ve seen debut recently.
Between being able to see new screen stars like the Adalatherium come to life for the first time and having someone like Sir David Attenborough narrating the beauty of their lives, it’s no wonder that Prehistoric Planet executive producer Jon Favreau once woke up at 2 AM for an unforgettable experience in production. Thinking about all of the new and exciting prospects when making a series like this, it feels like something that natural history buffs would lose sleep over in the best way possible.
As Prehistoric Planet 2 winds down with its final episode, the future is alight with all sorts of possibilities. When Tim Walker said that, “The Prehistoric Planet is huge,” he wasn’t kidding. Millions of years, a diverse plethora of habitats, and just as many creatures to explore await; all that has to happen now is for the greenlight to be given for another round. Here’s hoping that happens sooner than later, bringing more majestic and mighty beasts to our screens in another year’s time, with some of them being fellow newcomers to the stage of our scientific imaginations.
Should you have already made your way through all 10 episodes currently available, you’re in luck. Thanks to Apple’s Prehistoric Planet: The Official Podcast, you can dig even further into the material that’s been presented, and fulfill even more of your paleontological curiosities. Whether the Adalatherium's agent has reached out for an appearance in the next phase of the Jurassic World franchise is, at the moment, unknown.
