The world of Jurassic Park began with author Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel, but in 1993, it was brought to stunning life by director Steven Spielberg. The visionary filmmaker changed the game yet again with the revelatory film, which took home three Oscars in 1994, including one for Visual Effects, the likes of which the world had never seen before.
Indeed, there was just nothing like Jurassic Park, which miraculously brought long-extinct dinosaurs to vivid life, right before amazed audience’s very eyes. And those effects have continued to amaze audiences throughout the franchise’s not-even-close-to-extinct life, including JP‘s 1997 sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, which was also directed by Spielberg. But even while setting aside directing duties, Spielberg has never been far away from the venerable franchise, having served as an executive producer on every subsequent film, and that won’t change with this summer’s Jurassic World Rebirth.
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Did Steven Spielberg direct Jurassic World Rebirth?
No, Spielberg serves as an executive producer on Jurassic World Rebirth, which is directed by Gareth Edwards.
That’s not to say that Edwards, the man behind such adored blockbusters as Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, won’t be hugely influenced by Spielberg’s approach to dino-sized filmmaking; in fact, in the featurette above, Edwards even says that the new film feels especially Spielberg-ian.
“When I read the script, it felt like a love letter to Spielberg,” Edwards says. “I’ve always wanted to shoot on film; I really wanted Jurassic World Rebirth to have that naturalistic, cinematic quality … It will have a lot of humor, and it will be fun, but it also has a lot of very scary, very intense moments.”
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In the same featurette, star Jonathan Bailey (Wicked) expounds on the idea that Rebirth is a very Spielbergian movie: “For anyone who loves the original Jurassic films, this is the movie for you.”
Of course, Spielberg isn’t just influencing the new film with his previous contributions, the executive producer also helped to shape Rebirth from the beginning, recruiting original Jurassic Park and The Lost World screenwriter David Koepp to craft the story. As such, the two bandied ideas about, including one of the first things they discussed including in the script: a raft sequence from the original Crichton novel that didn’t make its way into the first film.
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“There was a sequence from the first novel that we’d always wanted in the original movie, but didn’t have room for,” Koepp told Variety. “We were like, ‘Hey, we get to use that now.’ But just to get back in that head space 30 years later — is it still fun? And the answer is yes, it still really is. Dinosaurs are still fun.”
The fun of Rebirth picks up five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion (now streaming on Peacock), where, on a tropical island that once served as InGen’s original research lab, the remnants of the escaped dinosaurs from Lockwood Manor have grown up… a lot. The plot centers around a group of mercenaries (including Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali) risking life and limb to collect DNA samples from the island’s ravenous population, so that a pharmaceutical company can develop a miracle panacea for humankind. What could go wrong?!
When does Jurassic World Rebirth open in theaters?
All the fun of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park universe returns when Gareth Edwards’ Jurassic World Rebirth opens wide Wednesday, July 2.
The film will also stream exclusively on Peacock later this year!
