- “Jurassic World Rebirth” will effectively be a franchise reset.
- David Koepp, who wrote “Jurassic Park” and “The Lost World: Jurassic Park,” returned for the 2025 sequel.
- Koepp told BI he was excited to “start over” and introduce new characters.
“A new era is born.” That’s the tagline for the upcoming “Jurassic World Rebirth.” It’s also the ethos for the film’s thematic reset.
Universal released the film’s first full trailer Wednesday, which introduces brand new characters in the saga and sets the stage for the multibillion-dollar franchise’s reset after the poorly reviewed “Jurassic World Dominion.”
The movie also marks the return of screenwriter David Koepp, who wrote the first two movies in the franchise created by Michael Crichton: the 1993 original “Jurassic Park” and its 1997 sequel “The Lost World: Jurassic Park,” both directed by Steven Spielberg.
Koepp told Business Insider he was elated to revisit the beloved franchise and was eager to start from scratch after the conclusion of the second trilogy led by Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard.
“The chance to start over in terms of tweaking the tone a little bit maybe, and bringing in all new characters, that was really exciting,” Koepp said.
He said the goal was “to recapture a spirit and tone” of the first two films in the franchise.
“Those first two movies were some of my favorite writing experiences ever,” Koepp said. “It’s just a great, fun sandbox to play in.”
“Rebirth” follows paleontologist Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), covert operations expert Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), and team leader Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) on a dangerous mission to the research facility for the original Jurassic Park, where they must retrieve DNA from the three biggest dinosaurs — creatures that were “too dangerous” for the original park — for medical research.
Koepp worked to integrate his deep love and knowledge of Crichton’s books and the original franchise into the new movie, previously teasing that “Rebirth” would have a sequence from the original Crichton book he’d had to scrap from the original movies. There are also more explicit links to the first movie: Bailey told Vanity Fair that his character has a connection to Sam Neill’s Dr. Alan Grant.
Koepp told BI that although “Rebirth” is an original story and is not based on the plots of any Crichton novel, he reread both of Crichton’s “Jurassic Park” novels before writing and incorporated “a number of things” from them.
“There’s so many little treasures in it,” Koepp said of Crichton’s “Jurassic Park” books. “It’s 800 pages of great moments and great research and just really wonderful ideas.”
Though little else is known about the film so far, Koepp is enthusiastic about the end result. “I’m delighted about it,” he said. “I haven’t seen it yet, but I can’t wait.”
“Jurassic World Rebirth” will be in theaters on July 2.
