New Zealand’s Floating Rock Studio Unveils The Trailer For Its First IP, ‘Kyōryū,’ About Samurai Dinosaurs Living In Postapocalyptic Japan

Wellington, New Zealand-based animation and vfx house Floating Rock Studio has released the trailer for its first original IP, a post-apocalyptic story about genetically enhanced samurai dinosaurs living in Japan after the fall of humanity. The studio is currently developing narrative and video game formats of the property.

Floating Rock Studio was founded in 2020 by a quartet of industry vets: Stephanie Parker, Garrick Rawlingson, Lukas Niklaus, Laurent Herveic. It began life as a vendor studio, doing commissioned animation and vfx work. In 2022, the company received an AUD 4 million ($2.55M) growth capital investment led by New Zealand-based Hillfarrance Venture Capital and used the money to assemble a team of experienced and ambitious animation and vfx artists and expand its original IP division.

Given the diverse nature of work that Floating Rock and its employees have done in the past, we asked Niklaus about the company’s long-term plans for its original IP division and whether it would be focusing on animation, vfx-heavy live-action, or other storytelling mediums. He explained:

We want to tell great stories; the medium doesn’t matter. We have seven more IPs in development at the moment. Some of them are live action with heavy vfx, some are full cg R-rated animation, and some could even be video games. All that matters is that we tell great, meaningful stories and that their creators’ voice and vision is being realized. We believe that if we give artists agency and responsibility over their work and, instead of managing them, start removing obstacles from their path, we will see a new renaissance of filmmaking and storytelling, unlike anything we’ve seen in a long time.

The studio’s first original IP, Kyōryū, unspools in the ruins of a post-apocalyptic Japan where genetically engineered dinosaurs have outlasted humanity. Despite being built for the future and far more intelligent than their ancient ancestors, prehistoric instincts still dominate much of the beasts’ behavior, and tribal wars break out among them.

Benjamin Mulot, an animator at Floating Rock, created the project. He specializes in creature animation and has worked in the Hollywood film industry for over a decade, picking up credits on films such as Jumanji, Godzilla vs. Kong, and Avatar: The Way of Water.

The project was selected from while Floating Rock was developing its in-house platform Pitchfest, a call for the studio’s artists to develop their pitches with the help of more experienced industry professionals.

Mulot is excited to have his idea realized, but hopes that he’s only the first in a long line of Floating Rock artist that get to enjoy that feeling. He explained:

I am grateful for the opportunity to lay the potential pathway for future creators that may come from Pitchfest. Floating Rock and Hillfarrance believed in my project from the beginning, supporting me throughout the process of creating an epic pitch deck and fulfilling my vision of a breathtaking trailer. Floating Rock and their team removed hurdles that I could not do on my own, which allowed me to focus on the creative vision of Kyōryū.

We asked Floating Rock co-founder Lukas Niklaus what about Mulot’s project made it the right fit for the company’s original IP pipeline. He explained:

For me, the reason was twofold. Benji is a fantastic creative with a great vision and collaborative spirit. He lives and breathes his work. That was reason number one. Reason number two was that his idea just felt fresh and new and like something we hadn’t seen before. The dinosaur movie genre has gotten quite stale recently, with Jurassic World on one end and Prehistoric Planet on the other, but there’s nothing more imaginative in the middle. I felt like this was a fantastic niche to fill. And, of course, as an animator myself, I wanted to help animate cool samurai dinosaurs. That’s an animator’s dream.

According to the studio’s bosses, the teaser was produced and released as “a type of beacon to see what other creative, strategic, and financial partners we could attract to join us along our journey of developing this property.”

Floating Rock is currently developing the Kyōryū property further, adapting its narratives to both series and video game formats that will overlap but also stand on their own as independent stories.