Gareth Edwards hopes ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ will kick off a new ‘Jurassic’ trilogy.
The upcoming blockbuster will mark a new era in the dinosaur franchise, and the 49-year-olf filmmaker has revealed he wants ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ to spawn its own sub-series.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Edwards said: “I can't speak for Universal [Pictures], but it did feel like a new trilogy, in a way.
“I’m not sure what their plans are, but it felt like the beginning of a brand-new chapter in this franchise.”
The ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’ director added his movie was “a giant love letter” to Steven Spielberg, who had helmed the original ‘Jurassic Park’ and its sequel ‘The Lost World: Jurassic Park’ in 1993 and 1997 respectively.
Edwards continued: “There are moments in this movie that remind me very much of ‘Jaws’. It’s like little greatest hits of all those aspects of his films that I loved growing up as a child. It’s essentially a little adventure odyssey across this island, a survival story, really.”
‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ - which stars Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali and will hit cinemas in July 2025 - is set five years after 2022’s ‘Dominion’, and will follow a team of scientists who race to extract DNA samples from three dinosaurs in an effort to find a ground-breaking medical breakthrough.
Edwards teased Johansson’s character Zora Bennett was a “special-ops, ex-CIA type” who had been contracted to infiltrate the area to secure the DNA.
Meanwhile, Bailey will be portraying palaeontologist, Dr. Henry Loomis, who the filmmaker said was “out of his depth in terms of the military element of the mission”.
The director added: “He's very comfortable on digs and expeditions but not the life-and-death risks that Kincaid and Zora are getting into.”
As for Ali’s character, ‘The Creator’ moviemaker revealed the actor would be playing Duncan Kincaid - who leads the team and shares a sibling-like bond with Johansson’s Bennett.
In another nod to Spielberg, Edwards compared the core trio to that of Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and Quint (Robert Shaw) from ‘Jaws’.
He said: “It’s that kind of triangle between three different overlapping characters.
“There's a lot of fun between the three of them that really popped out to me. It's less of a love triangle and much more of a competitive ‘who's the alpha in the group?’ kind of way.”
Previously, Johansson revealed she had been trying to land a role in the ‘Jurassic Park’ franchise for 15 years, and had been an “enormous” fan of the series since she watched the original in 1993.
During an interview with ComicBook.com, the ‘Avengers: Endgame’ star said: “I am an enormous ‘Jurassic Park’ fan.
“It is one of the first movies I remember seeing in theatres. I remember it so vividly. It was life-changing and mind-blowing. I cannot express how excited I am.”
