The Jurassic Park franchise has now been running for over thirty years and seems to be showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. The Spielberg-directed original 1993 film is a modern classic and has every right to be; it’s a flat-out masterful blockbuster. But as soon as you begin to get into the legacy of the sequels, things immediately get a bit muddier. That original film had two follow-ups in quick succession, in the form of 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park and 2001’s Jurassic Park III. Both of these received more mixed receptions from critics and audiences alike but still turned tidy profits.
Then in 2015, the game-changer hit, in the form of Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World. The shiny and vapid legacy sequel leaned all the way into nostalgia for Spielberg’s original film and became a billion-dollar smash in the process, going on to become one of the highest-grossing films of all time. It was followed up by two sequels of its own, 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and 2022’s Jurassic World Dominion, which received much more mixed receptions but still made at least a billion dollars each, ensuring the franchise wasn’t going anywhere.
Thus, in 2025, audiences got a soft reboot of sorts in the form of Gareth Edwards’ Jurassic World Rebirth. Given this trajectory, it was not surprising to hear that a Jurassic World Rebirth follow-up is moving ahead in development, but what is surprising is that it will be doing so without a director, for now.
Jurassic World Rebirth was a big-budget, blockbuster production that was planned, executed, and ultimately completed with a lot of speed. The film stemmed from the screenwriter of the original film, David Koepp, pitching an idea; it got approved, and suddenly the film was off to the races. Stars were attached, in the form of Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, and Mahershala Ali, and the film was left looking for a director who could hop on board and quickly take the wheel of the already-in-motion production. Initially, producers Spielberg and Frank Marshall sought out David Leitch (director of things like Atomic Blonde, Bullet Train, and The Fall Guy) before those talks went up in smoke, and they opted for Edwards instead.
For his part, Edwards was uniquely equipped to handle stepping into this unique role on such a large film. Previously, the director had helmed large-scale monster mayhem in the form of both Monsters and Godzilla and had spent the production of his previous film, The Creator, helping to push new methods of production in which he shot quickly and efficiently while also accommodating a lot of large-scale VFX work. Reception of Rebirth was ultimately mixed when it released, but bizarrely enough, I quite liked it; it was a simple and effective thrill ride that looked great, had some surprisingly strong performances (especially Bailey, who sells the shit out of his every beat on screen), and Edwards utilized his pre-established sense of visual scale to strong results.
But now, it has come out that despite beginning work on a follow-up, Gareth Edwards is exiting the new Jurassic World sequel altogether. In a statement, Universal Studios simply cited “creative differences” and said, “We had an incredible experience working with Gareth on Jurassic World Rebirth.” This means that much like the previous production, the new film will now be moving ahead minus a director, likely resulting in a similar situation wherein someone has to be brought on late in the process.
While this development is surprising in some ways, it also isn’t in others. Recently, Edwards has made some very public and very bizarre comments about AI in filmmaking, saying it is like having a “second-unit director who is a billionaire on acid" and speaking about how excited he is to utilize it further. In contrast, Spielberg has been very vocally against the use of AI, so that could have been the cause of some of those aforementioned “creative differences” behind the scenes. And even though I liked Rebirth, I’d rather kill myself than get an AI-littered Jurassic sequel, so perhaps it’s all for the best. Regardless, it will be fascinating to see who Spielberg and Marshal corral to step behind the camera for this next film.
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