Jurassic World Rebirth director Gareth Edwards was set to helm the next movie in the block-busting dino-disaster franchise before exiting the project over creative differences, and it seems the studio is planning to bring on a familiar face and a proven quantity as his replacement.
According to Jeff Sneider (and since backed up by THR), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom director J.A. Bayona is the frontrunner to step behind the camera for the untitled Rebirth follow-up. The studio reportedly approached Twisters director Lee Isaac Chung first, but things didn't work out.
Fallen Kingdom grossed $1.3 billion worldwide back in 2018.
Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, and Mahershala Ali are expected to reprise their respective roles as Zora Bennett, Dr. Henry Loomis, and Duncan Kincaid.
The Jurassic movies have always been critic-proof, and despite negative reviews, Rebirth ended up taking in $868 million worldwide. With those numbers - especially in a post-pandemic box office climate - a follow-up always seemed inevitable
Johansson sounded uncertain about returning for another movie in a recent interview, although she didn't completely close the door on revisiting the franchise.
"This film, to me, really felt like it's singular. It's its own piece. And you hope that this film stands on its own without the support of the films that come before and that it doesn't need to extend beyond what it is. I mean, the film is called Rebirth, of course, but Gareth [Edwards, director], and I think Frank [Marshall, producer] and Steven [Spielberg, executive producer] and all the creatives on this project, wanted to establish this film as its own contained, standalone thing."
What do you make of this news? Would you like to see Bayona return to helm another Jurassic World movie focusing on the characters that were introduced in Rebirth? Let us know in the comments section down below.
Five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion, the planet’s ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs. Those remaining exist in isolated equatorial environments with climates resembling the one in which they once thrived. The three most colossal creatures across land, sea and air within that tropical biosphere hold, in their DNA, the key to a drug that will bring miraculous life-saving benefits to humankind.
Academy Award nominee Scarlett Johansson plays skilled covert operations expert Zora Bennett, contracted to lead a skilled team on a top-secret mission to secure the genetic material. When Zora’s operation intersects with a civilian family whose boating expedition was capsized by marauding aquatic dinos, they all find themselves stranded on a forbidden island that had once housed an undisclosed research facility for Jurassic Park. There, in a terrain populated by dinosaurs of vastly different species, they come face-to-face with a sinister, shocking discovery that has been hidden from the world for decades.
Jurassic World Rebirth also stars Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Luna Blaise, David Iacono, Audrina Miranda, Philippine Velge, Bechir Sylvain, and Ed Skrein. Edwards directs from a script by Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp.