Jurassic Park Barbasol Cryo-Can

A smuggler's can

Early in Jurassic Park, Dennis Nedry meets his contact from the rival company Biosyn, Lewis Dodgson, played by Cameron Thor. Dodgson hands him a can of Barbasol shaving cream and explains what it really is: a cryogenic container built to keep stolen dinosaur embryos viable for 36 hours. That handoff sets up the betrayal that shuts down the park's security and lets the dinosaurs loose.

Later in the film Nedry slips into the cold-storage room on Isla Nublar and loads the can with embryos. During his escape in a storm, he crashes his jeep and is killed by a Dilophosaurus, and the can falls from the vehicle and is washed away in the churning mud. The embryos never leave the island, and the film never says what became of them.

The choice of brand was deliberate. Art director John Bell picked Barbasol for its look and instant recognizability, so that the can would stand out on screen and draw the audience's eye. Barbasol's aerosol design, introduced in the mid-1950s, imitates a barber's pole, and that red, white and blue spiral is what made the can easy to spot.

The people behind it

Steven Spielberg directed Jurassic Park from a screenplay by Michael Crichton and David Koepp, based on Crichton's 1990 novel. Kathleen Kennedy and Gerald R. Molen produced. Filming ran from August 24 to November 1992, in Kauai, Hawaii, and in California. Industrial Light & Magic built the computer-generated dinosaurs and Stan Winston's team built the animatronics.

Wayne Knight, born in New York City on August 7, 1955, was cast as Nedry soon after a role in Basic Instinct and while he was playing the mail carrier Newman on Seinfeld, a part he held from 1992 to 1998. Nedry earned him a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He went on to play Officer Don Orville on 3rd Rock from the Sun and to voice Al McWhiggin, the owner of Al's Toy Barn, in Toy Story 2.

The real Barbasol dates to 1919, when Frank Shields, a professor at MIT, invented it in Indianapolis as a less irritating shaving cream. Its early ads featured Babe Ruth and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and the singer known as Singin' Sam made its jingle famous. Since 2001 the brand has been owned by Perio, Inc., of Dublin, Ohio.

The summer of 1993

Jurassic Park premiered on June 9, 1993, at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C., and opened across the United States on June 11. Its first theatrical run earned more than $914 million worldwide, and it passed E.T. to become the highest-grossing film ever made, a title it held until Titanic in 1997.

It arrived in a turbulent year. Bill Clinton had been sworn in as president on January 20. The World Trade Center was bombed on February 26, and the siege at Waco ended in fire on April 19. That summer the Great Flood of 1993 swamped the Mississippi and Missouri river valleys, and on September 13 Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands at the White House.

The film won three Academy Awards, for sound, sound effects editing and visual effects. Its computer-generated animals changed how movies were made. After a 3D re-release in 2013 for its 20th anniversary, it became the oldest film to pass $1 billion in total ticket sales, and in 2018 it was added to the National Film Registry.

From the restaurant wall to the auction block

Planet Hollywood, the movie-themed restaurant chain founded by Keith Barish and Robert Earl, opened its first location on West 57th Street in New York City on October 22, 1991, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore among its celebrity backers. Its business was built on props and costumes displayed to diners, and over the years its curators assembled an archive of screen-used pieces from its restaurants worldwide. The Barbasol can was part of that collection.

In March 2024, more than 1,600 lots from that archive went up for sale in Dallas over five days, March 20 to 24, in an auction titled Treasures from Planet Hollywood. The can, offered as lot 90094 with a certificate of authenticity from the auctioneer, drew an early bid of $25,000 in pre-sale coverage. It sold on March 23, 2024, for $250,000, after 34 bids and registered phone bidders, and its listing had been viewed more than 26,000 times.

The sale as a whole brought $15.68 million from more than 5,500 bidders. That made it second only to the $22.8 million Debbie Reynolds collection auction of 2011 among sales of film props and costumes. Sixteen lots passed six figures. The can sold for more than Princess Leia's blaster from Return of the Jedi ($150,000) and Jack Nicholson's axe from The Shining ($125,000). Only a handful of lots, led by the floating wood panel from Titanic at $718,750, did better.

How to identify the hero can

The prop has two main parts. The outer sleeve is a faux Barbasol can of thin aluminum with a plastic cap and the company's branding, fitted with a milled aluminum interior cap. Inside sits the cryogenic unit itself, 4.5 inches tall and hand-milled from aluminum, with a rotating base sealed by a rubber O-ring. Two metal rings around a central stem each have 10 holes for the conical plastic vials.

Seven labeled embryo vials came with it: TR-1.024 (Tyrannosaurus rex), VR-1.011 (Velociraptor), BA-1.034 (Brachiosaurus), PR-2.012 (Proceratosaurus), PA-3.011 and PA-2.065 (possibly Parasaurolophus) and HE-1.0135 (possibly Herrerasaurus). The vials still hold traces of the clear yellowish liquid used to fill them during production, and the PR-2.012 vial is missing its cap.

Three decades of handling and display left their marks: scuffed finish, oxidation on the metal parts, faded color and loosening adhesive on the vial labels. That wear separates the screen-used piece from the many replicas made since. In 2023 a licensed replica of the can, made from CNC-machined metal with a pop-up centrifuge rack, was offered at $399.99 for the film's 30th anniversary; its maker said it worked from the original hero prop in the studio archives.

The can that came back

Since 1993, the Barbasol can's design has become tied to the Jurassic Park franchise. Barbasol itself leaned into the link, partnering with Jurassic World in 2015 on dinosaur-themed cans and promotions.

The fictional can also returned on screen. In Jurassic World Dominion (2022), Lewis Dodgson, now Biosyn's chief executive and played by Campbell Scott, grabs Nedry's can from his office as he flees the burning lab. The film never explains how he recovered it from the mud of Isla Nublar, and director Colin Trevorrow pointed fans toward the animated series Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous for an answer.

For collectors, the hero can matters because of what it does in the story. It is the object that wrecks Jurassic Park, and it reached the market with clean studio-to-restaurant provenance and its original vials. Its $250,000 result put a shaving-cream can among the top lots of one of the largest film-prop auctions ever held.

The numbers

U.S. release

June 11, 1993 (premiere June 9, Washington, D.C.)

Director

Steven Spielberg

Can's role

Given to Nedry by Biosyn's Lewis Dodgson; designed to keep embryos for 36 hours

Initial worldwide gross

More than $914 million

Academy Awards

3: Sound, Sound Effects Editing, Visual Effects

Embryo slots

20 (two rings of 10)

Vials with the prop

7

Auction

Treasures from Planet Hollywood, March 20-24, 2024: about 1,600 lots, $15.68 million total

Timeline

1. 1919

   Frank Shields invents Barbasol shaving cream in Indianapolis.

2. 1990

   Michael Crichton publishes the novel Jurassic Park.

3. Oct 22, 1991

   Planet Hollywood opens its first restaurant in New York City; its archive later holds the can.

4. Aug 24, 1992

   Filming of Jurassic Park begins; art director John Bell picks Barbasol for Nedry's embryo container.

5. Jun 9, 1993

   Jurassic Park premieres in Washington, D.C., with the can in Nedry's key scenes.

6. Jun 11, 1993

   The film opens across the United States.

7. 2013

   A 3D re-release for the 20th anniversary pushes the film past $1 billion in total ticket sales.

8. 2015

   Barbasol partners with Jurassic World on dinosaur-themed cans.

9. 2018

   Jurassic Park is added to the National Film Registry.

10. 2022

    The fictional can reappears in Jurassic World Dominion, in Lewis Dodgson's office.

11. Feb 14, 2023

    A licensed 30th-anniversary replica of the can is announced at $399.99.

12. Mar 20, 2024

    The Treasures from Planet Hollywood auction opens in Dallas, with the can as lot 90094.

13. Mar 23, 2024

    The hero can sells for $250,000.

14. Mar 25, 2024

    Final results are announced: the sale totals $15.68 million.

The world in 1993

• Jan 20, 1993

  Bill Clinton is sworn in as the 42nd president.

• Feb 26, 1993

  A bomb in the World Trade Center's garage kills six and injures more than 1,000.

• Mar 22, 1993

  Intel ships the first Pentium chips.

• Apr 19, 1993

  The Waco siege ends in a fire that kills 76 people.

• Jun 20, 1993

  The Chicago Bulls win their third straight NBA championship.

• Sep 13, 1993

  Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shake hands at the White House after signing a peace accord.

• Nov 30, 1993

  The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act is signed into law.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Jurassic Park Barbasol Cryo-Can is number 97 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (99 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The prop's inner rack has 20 slots, two rings of 10, but only seven labeled vials came with it.
• One vial is labeled PR-2.012 for Proceratosaurus, a dinosaur that never appears in the film.
• The vials still hold traces of the yellowish liquid the crew used to fill them in 1992.
• Barbasol's early ads featured Babe Ruth decades before its can became a movie prop.
• In Jurassic World Dominion the can turns up in Dodgson's office, and the film never explains how it got out of the mud.
• The can sold for $100,000 more than Princess Leia's blaster from Return of the Jedi in the same sale.