Billionaire plans to build real life Jurassic Park

An eccentric and very wealthy businessman is rumoured to be building his own dinosaur theme park -- complete with real dinosaurs. (iStock) An Australian billionaire reportedly plans to clone a real dinosaur from ancient DNA samples for a "Jurassic Park-style" area at his new theme resort, prompting many around the web to ask, "Has Clive Palmer seen how Jurassic Park ended?"

Palmer, one of Australia's richest men, has been in "deep discussion" with the same scientists who cloned Dolly the sheep in 1996 to bring his vision to life, reports the Sunshine Coast Daily.

Insiders say that if successful, Palmer will set his dinosaur free to roam around a resort he's building Coolum, Australia. Other plans for the resort are said to include a 20-storey Sky Needle, a casino, and a giant London Eye-style Ferris wheel.

It may sound like an elaborate ruse, but Palmer is the mind (and pocketbook) behind a number of outlandish projects announced in the past.

In April the mining tycoon announced plans to build a fully functional replica of the RMS Titanic, which he says will be ready to set sail by 2016.

Rumours persist that he is also planning to build sky rail to Mount Coolum.

Palmer hasn't publicly addressed the Jurassic Park rumours, but has scheduled a press conference in Brisbane on Friday.

Excitement and skepticism about the project could be found in equal measure online Thursday afternoon.

"Because some insanely rich people are still decent human beings, Australian 5x billionaire Clive Palmer (the same guy building a replica of the Titanic) wants to clone a dinosaur and let it loose on his property as a sort of ultra-casual Jurassic Park," writes Geekolgie. "I know where I want to go for my next birthday."

Extreme Tech's Ryan Whitwan warns dinosaur lovers not to get their hopes up.

"Assuming that a benevolent billionaire had magical, perfect dinosaur DNA, we don't even have the living cells we'd need to birth a dinosaur," he explains. "It's not a question of technology, or of funding... We're never going to return dinosaurs or any other ancient creature to Earth because their genes are long gone."

What are your thoughts? If a real-life Jurassic Park came to fruition, would you visit it?