Universal is reportedly developing a sequel to Scarlett Johansson’s hit 2025 film Jurassic World Rebirth, and now screenwriter David Koepp is revealing a brand-new update about the current status of the project.
Jurassic World Rebirth is the seventh film in the Jurassic Park/World franchise and marked Johansson’s first time starring in a dinosaur movie. Despite mixed reviews, it went on to gross $869 million and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects. The box office success led Universal to greenlight a sequel.
The producing team is still in the early stages of developing the follow-up to Jurassic World Rebirth, as confirmed by Koepp in an interview with ScreenRant’s Liam Crowley. The screenwriter, who also penned the scripts for the original Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park, revealed that nobody has figured out yet how to “logically and in a scientifically believable way expand” the franchise.
Jonathan Bailey as Loomis and Scarlett Johansson as Zora in Jurassic World Rebirth
Koepp believes in making one good movie at a time instead of thinking about this through the lens of creating a new trilogy starting with Rebirth. Now the focus has shifted to Jurassic World 5, with the writer pondering how he goes about making another quality film.
He acknowledged that Jurassic World Rebirth was challenging because the franchise has “become very big” and “very spread out” after all these years. He overcame that challenge by “restricting” the dinosaurs to one particular location, with water becoming a major element in the film. Now, if somebody at Universal can crack the code on expanding the franchise while still adhering to logic and science, then “I think you’ll have a next movie,” according to Koepp.
“You can’t say trilogy. You got to make one good movie. So now what about another good movie? How would we do that? I think that the challenge of Rebirth was the franchises have become very big, very spread out. Let’s make the dinosaurs special again by restricting them. So we restricted them to this thing, and then the challenge becomes, okay, now how do we logically and in a scientifically believable way expand? That would be the question. If somebody can answer that, I think you’ll have a next movie.”
The franchise originated with Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel Jurassic Park, which was adapted for the big screen by acclaimed director Steven Spielberg three years later.
Jurassic Park is one of the most iconic movies of all time (with an equally iconic score by John Williams) and remains the highest-rated film in the series, with a 91% Rotten Tomatoes score. The sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, followed in 1997 after Crichton wrote and published the book. Then the original trilogy ended with Jurassic Park III in 2001.
The IP lay dormant for over a decade until Colin Trevorrow directed Jurassic World, the start of a new era for the franchise and the first installment in a new trilogy starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. The other two installments, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World Dominion, were released in 2018 and 2022, respectively. Jurassic World surpassed Jurassic Park to become the highest-grossing film in the franchise, a distinction that remains to this day.
After Dominion, Universal made another installment, but with all-new characters in Jurassic World Rebirth. Gareth Edwards helmed the movie, with Koepp being brought back into the fold after a 28-year absence. During that time away, the screenwriter worked on films like Spider-Man, War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Mummy (2017), and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Universal hasn’t officially greenlit the Jurassic World Rebirth sequel just yet, so the cast, crew, title, and release date are currently unknown.
Release Date
July 2, 2025
Runtime
134 minutes
Director
Gareth Edwards
