Mark Cuban wants to turn the Texas town he bought into a dinosaur destination

When Mark Cuban bought the town of Mustang, Texas to help a family friend — with the help of a disgraced ex-Mavericks employee — in 2021, he didn’t have any idea of what he would do with it. That appears to have changed.

When Cuban was a guest on “The Drew Barrymore Show” earlier this year (the episode recently re-aired, reigniting the conversation), he told Barrymore that he plans to turn Mustang into a dinosaur theme park. Yes, Cuban wants to be a real-life DinoPark Tycoon.

Instead of real-life dinos like something out of a Michael Crichton novel, Cuban’s beasts will be life-size, animatronic models from Dino Don. Cuban invested in Dino Don after the company appeared on “Shark Tank.”

“He makes the animatronic dinosaurs, these huge dinosaurs that look and sound real,” Cuban told Barrymore of Dino Don’s owner, Don Lessem. “...We haven’t worked through it yet, but there’s a chance we might change Mustang, Texas to Dinosaur, Texas...but that’s a long shot.”

Dinosaur-themed destinations aren’t new to North Texas. Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, which has dinosaur footprints in the Paluxy riverbed, is perhaps the most popular dinosaur attraction in the state. The Heard Museum in McKinney also robotic dinos for their exhibit Dinosaurs Live!

Now, Cuban will have his own Jurassic Park in Mustang. His park will probably fair better than John Hammond’s. Let’s just hope if the robotic dinosaurs come to life after being struck by lightning that they’ll be as benevolent as Johnny 5.