In 1988, the project began development in Disney's live-action division in which Verhoeven and Tippett had originally planned to use stop motion animation techniques such as puppets, scale models, and miniatures. The film's original main protagonist was a "Styracosaurus" named Woot and the main antagonist was originally a "Tyrannosaurus rex" named Grozni, with a small mammal named Suri as a supporting character. The film was originally going to be much darker and violent in tone, in a style akin to a nature documentary. After Woot defeats Grozni in a final fight, the film would end with the "Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event", which would ultimately result in the deaths of the main dinosaur characters. In 1990, producer/director Thomas G. Smith became involved in the film and briefly became the director following Verhoeven's and Tippett's departure. Reflecting on his tenure, Smith said that "Jeanne Rosenberg was still writing the script, but it was in trouble. Disney wanted a cute story of dinosaurs talking, and I didn't like the idea. I thought it should be more like Jean Annaud's "The Bear". I wanted to have actual lemurs in it. They actually existed at the time of dinosaurs...We actually located a guy who trains them." However, Katzenberg called Smith to help on "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid" (1992) in which he was replaced by David W. Allen who had just finished directing "Puppet Master II" (1990).