A Japanese dinosaur movie that arrived just weeks before Jurassic Park is finally getting its first U.S. theatrical release, more than three decades after its original debut.
Rex: A Dinosaur’s Story, Haruki Kadokawa’s 1993 Christmas-set family film featuring creature effects by Carlo Rambaldi, will open at New York’s Metrograph on December 11, 2026, through Kani Releasing.
The release gives American audiences a chance to see a film that was once positioned as a major Japanese blockbuster, complete with the work of the effects artist behind the creatures in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Alien. It also comes with a rather unusual piece of movie history. The film’s original theatrical run was cut short after Kadokawa was arrested and later convicted in a cocaine-smuggling case.
Rex: A Dinosaur’s Story opened in Japan on July 3, 1993, shortly before Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park became a worldwide phenomenon. Kadokawa had blockbuster ambitions of his own, and the production brought in Italian effects legend Rambaldi to create its dinosaurs. His credits also included Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Dune, but his work on E.T. remains one of his best-known achievements.
The film follows Chie, a young girl whose paleontologist father discovers dinosaur eggs. When a baby Tyrannosaurus Rex enters her life, the two form a bond, but the discovery attracts people more interested in turning the dinosaur into a commercial attraction than letting it live. The movie’s Christmas setting and practical creature effects give it a very different flavor from the dinosaur spectacle audiences came to associate with Jurassic Park.
Rex grossed 2.2 billion yen in Japan and ranked as the seventh-highest-grossing film in the country in 1993. Its production budget was reportedly 2 billion yen. Those figures did not translate into a profitable theatrical run, and the film’s time in cinemas was cut short after Kadokawa’s legal troubles.
Kadokawa was accused of directing an aide to smuggle cocaine from the United States. He maintained his innocence but was convicted in 1994 and served a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence. Shochiku, the film’s original distributor, pulled Rex from theaters following the scandal. Kadokawa later returned to directing with The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, released in 1997.
The new U.S. release follows a 4K remaster screening at the Japan Cuts festival in New York in July 2026. Kani Releasing is beginning the theatrical rollout with a one-week engagement at Metrograph, with additional screenings planned in cities including Chicago, Seattle and Austin. The distributor’s current schedule also lists dates in other markets, including Columbus, Rochester, Brattleboro, Orlando and Honolulu.
Metrograph is making Rex the opening attraction for Dinosauria, a dinosaur-themed film series running through January 3, 2027. The program reaches well beyond the usual prehistoric blockbusters, bringing together animated favorites, monster movies and ambitious visions of Earth’s distant past. Its lineup includes Fantasia, Godzilla, Journey to the Beginning of Time, King Kong, Jurassic Park, The Land Before Time and The Tree of Life.
For a movie that never received a U.S. theatrical release during its original run, opening a dinosaur retrospective in New York is a fitting second life. And with Rambaldi’s practical dinosaur effects finally getting a proper American big-screen engagement, Rex is arriving with a story almost as unusual as the movie itself.
