Jurassic World: Rebirth director says ‘audiences aren't that interested in dinosaurs anymore'
The 50-year-old filmmaker helmed the latest instalment in the Jurassic franchise, and has now stressed he wanted to 'do something new' with his movie as he believes dinosaurs simply aren't a big enough selling point for viewers anymore.
He told GamesRadar+: 'There's been many dinosaur films in terms of Jurassics, and the audience, you've got to do something new and fresh to give them a reason to come see the movie.
'And so by acknowledging that at the beginning and saying, 'Look, audiences aren't that interested in dinosaurs anymore', I thought it was like, 'Okay, well, this is an honest beginning. Let's see where we go from here.''
Jurassic World: Rebirth - which stars Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali - follows a team of covert operatives who race to stop a rogue biotech group unleashing weaponised dinosaurs across the globe.
As prehistoric chaos spreads, the group must confront a dark secret tied to the original Jurassic legacy.
The Rogue One: A Star Wars Story previously said he wanted to return the 'horror' elements to the series with Jurassic World: Rebirth.
Speaking with Vanity Fair, Edwards said: 'Jurassic Park [the original 1993 movie] is a horror film in the witness protection program. Most people don't think of it like that.
'We all went to see it as kids. But I was scared s*******, to be honest, when I was at the cinema watching the T. rex attack.
'It's one of the most well-directed scenes in cinema history, so the bar's really high to come on board and try and do this.'
The Creator director added: 'There's something very primal that's buried deep inside everybody. As mammals, we evolved [with] this fear of the bigger animal that's going to come one day and maybe kill us or our family.
'The second we see it happening onscreen, you're like, 'I knew it … We had it too good for too long.''
Edwards had also said he hoped Jurassic World: Rebirth would kick off a new trilogy in the franchise.
He told Entertainment Weekly: '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 director added his movie was 'a giant love letter' to Steven Spielberg, who had helmed the original Jurassic Park and its 1997 sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
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.'
Since its theatrical debut on Wednesday (02.07.25), Jurassic World: Rebirth has managed to impress at the box office - earning $30.5 million in the U.S. and Canada on its first day.
The blockbuster is now predicted to cross $133 million in its first five days in North America, with a global gross projected at $260 million.
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Jurassic World: Rebirth director says ‘audiences aren't that interested in dinosaurs anymore'
Jurassic World: Rebirth director Gareth Edwards thinks 'audiences aren't that interested in dinosaurs anymore'. The 50-year-old filmmaker helmed the latest instalment in the Jurassic franchise, and has now stressed he wanted to 'do something new' with his movie as he believes dinosaurs simply aren't a big enough selling point for viewers anymore. He told GamesRadar+: 'There's been many dinosaur films in terms of Jurassics, and the audience, you've got to do something new and fresh to give them a reason to come see the movie. 'And so by acknowledging that at the beginning and saying, 'Look, audiences aren't that interested in dinosaurs anymore', I thought it was like, 'Okay, well, this is an honest beginning. Let's see where we go from here.'' Jurassic World: Rebirth - which stars Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali - follows a team of covert operatives who race to stop a rogue biotech group unleashing weaponised dinosaurs across the globe. As prehistoric chaos spreads, the group must confront a dark secret tied to the original Jurassic legacy. The Rogue One: A Star Wars Story previously said he wanted to return the 'horror' elements to the series with Jurassic World: Rebirth. Speaking with Vanity Fair, Edwards said: 'Jurassic Park [the original 1993 movie] is a horror film in the witness protection program. Most people don't think of it like that. 'We all went to see it as kids. But I was scared s*******, to be honest, when I was at the cinema watching the T. rex attack. 'It's one of the most well-directed scenes in cinema history, so the bar's really high to come on board and try and do this.' The Creator director added: 'There's something very primal that's buried deep inside everybody. As mammals, we evolved [with] this fear of the bigger animal that's going to come one day and maybe kill us or our family. 'The second we see it happening onscreen, you're like, 'I knew it … We had it too good for too long.'' Edwards had also said he hoped Jurassic World: Rebirth would kick off a new trilogy in the franchise. He told Entertainment Weekly: '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 director added his movie was 'a giant love letter' to Steven Spielberg, who had helmed the original Jurassic Park and its 1997 sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park. 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.' Since its theatrical debut on Wednesday (02.07.25), Jurassic World: Rebirth has managed to impress at the box office - earning $30.5 million in the U.S. and Canada on its first day. The blockbuster is now predicted to cross $133 million in its first five days in North America, with a global gross projected at $260 million.
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Jurassic World: Rebirth (M, 133 minutes) 3 stars Scarlett Johansson almost single-handedly carries this latest film in the 32-year-old dinosaur action film series. I mean, there are plenty of dinosaur critters, plenty of action, enough dubious characters getting their comeuppance, and some sensible restraint in the writing and the direction - and ScarJo had nothing to do with any of those things. But there's a world-weariness and vulnerability that Johansson brings to her mercenary leading an expedition to the last remaining havens of the world's dinosaur population. Writer David Koepp, director Gareth Edwards and the film's producers don't try and overburden the path her character is on. As aforementioned, it is 32 years since audiences were gobsmacked, just like Sam Neil and Laura Dern's characters were, by a pack of brontosaurus in Steven Spielberg's original Jurassic Park. 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Krebs is working for some unseen money-men looking for blood samples collected from the largest of the remaining dinosaur population to produce lucrative medical products. The team Krebs assembles includes research scientist Dr Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) and transport specialist Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali). Screenwriter David Koepp was one of Spielberg's original 1993 Jurassic writers and he goes back to the heart of what made that film so great. The greatest amongst those things I think is its character interplay. There's no need to force some unnecessary sexual tension between anybody and there's enough emotional rawness in each of the characters' backstories - and we're far enough from the 90s - that greed itself isn't enough of a character motivator. And so the Johansson and Bailey characters can discuss the ethics of what they're doing without the filmmakers forcing a reason for them to drop their shirts, or flirt, or kiss. For anyone who misses that in their family-audience dinosaur film, Game of Thrones star Ed Skrein is dressed in such skin tight Lycra, which I'm not sure most real-life game-hunting mercenaries would don, that his nipples deserve their own film credit. Writer Koepp has, in his CV, also written for the LEGO PlayStation game versions of the Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones films, and here he and director Gareth Edwards give us plenty of great fan service jokes, like the old "objects in the mirror may appear closer than they are", so that I very much look forward to the LEGO PlayStation game of this film. The performers are all good, and they're all given enough meat and motivation to be more fleshed-out than their future LEGO selves. Among the things to celebrate in director Edwards's approach is shying away from CGI to work with practical effects, puppetry and real location filming where possible, and so the film looks great and doesn't feel HDTV surreal. He took the Star Wars franchise back to its gritty fan-base-loyal origins when he directed Rogue One, opening up a new line of storytelling. I feel he's just done the same for this tired old beast of a money-making film machine. Jurassic World: Rebirth (M, 133 minutes) 3 stars Scarlett Johansson almost single-handedly carries this latest film in the 32-year-old dinosaur action film series. I mean, there are plenty of dinosaur critters, plenty of action, enough dubious characters getting their comeuppance, and some sensible restraint in the writing and the direction - and ScarJo had nothing to do with any of those things. But there's a world-weariness and vulnerability that Johansson brings to her mercenary leading an expedition to the last remaining havens of the world's dinosaur population. Writer David Koepp, director Gareth Edwards and the film's producers don't try and overburden the path her character is on. As aforementioned, it is 32 years since audiences were gobsmacked, just like Sam Neil and Laura Dern's characters were, by a pack of brontosaurus in Steven Spielberg's original Jurassic Park. In this fictional world, it has also been that amount of time, a timeline where dinosaurs escaped their enclosures and joined the world's ecosystems. The jaded New Yorkers of this film's opening scenes are fed up to the back teeth with the traffic jams and interruptions to their routines that a dying Brontosaurus is causing in the city. Our world is a colder place full of new diseases, and since the trilogy of Jurassic films that starred Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt, most of the escaped plague of dinos have been dying out, their second great extinction. Only a thin band of latitude along the equator is climatically suitable. It is here that a shadowy services-for-hire operative Zora Bennett (ScarJo) is offered an obscene amount of money to bring the even shadowy-er pharmaceutical company exec Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend). Krebs is working for some unseen money-men looking for blood samples collected from the largest of the remaining dinosaur population to produce lucrative medical products. The team Krebs assembles includes research scientist Dr Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) and transport specialist Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali). Screenwriter David Koepp was one of Spielberg's original 1993 Jurassic writers and he goes back to the heart of what made that film so great. The greatest amongst those things I think is its character interplay. There's no need to force some unnecessary sexual tension between anybody and there's enough emotional rawness in each of the characters' backstories - and we're far enough from the 90s - that greed itself isn't enough of a character motivator. And so the Johansson and Bailey characters can discuss the ethics of what they're doing without the filmmakers forcing a reason for them to drop their shirts, or flirt, or kiss. For anyone who misses that in their family-audience dinosaur film, Game of Thrones star Ed Skrein is dressed in such skin tight Lycra, which I'm not sure most real-life game-hunting mercenaries would don, that his nipples deserve their own film credit. Writer Koepp has, in his CV, also written for the LEGO PlayStation game versions of the Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones films, and here he and director Gareth Edwards give us plenty of great fan service jokes, like the old "objects in the mirror may appear closer than they are", so that I very much look forward to the LEGO PlayStation game of this film. The performers are all good, and they're all given enough meat and motivation to be more fleshed-out than their future LEGO selves. Among the things to celebrate in director Edwards's approach is shying away from CGI to work with practical effects, puppetry and real location filming where possible, and so the film looks great and doesn't feel HDTV surreal. He took the Star Wars franchise back to its gritty fan-base-loyal origins when he directed Rogue One, opening up a new line of storytelling. I feel he's just done the same for this tired old beast of a money-making film machine. Jurassic World: Rebirth (M, 133 minutes) 3 stars Scarlett Johansson almost single-handedly carries this latest film in the 32-year-old dinosaur action film series. I mean, there are plenty of dinosaur critters, plenty of action, enough dubious characters getting their comeuppance, and some sensible restraint in the writing and the direction - and ScarJo had nothing to do with any of those things. But there's a world-weariness and vulnerability that Johansson brings to her mercenary leading an expedition to the last remaining havens of the world's dinosaur population. Writer David Koepp, director Gareth Edwards and the film's producers don't try and overburden the path her character is on. As aforementioned, it is 32 years since audiences were gobsmacked, just like Sam Neil and Laura Dern's characters were, by a pack of brontosaurus in Steven Spielberg's original Jurassic Park. In this fictional world, it has also been that amount of time, a timeline where dinosaurs escaped their enclosures and joined the world's ecosystems. The jaded New Yorkers of this film's opening scenes are fed up to the back teeth with the traffic jams and interruptions to their routines that a dying Brontosaurus is causing in the city. Our world is a colder place full of new diseases, and since the trilogy of Jurassic films that starred Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt, most of the escaped plague of dinos have been dying out, their second great extinction. Only a thin band of latitude along the equator is climatically suitable. It is here that a shadowy services-for-hire operative Zora Bennett (ScarJo) is offered an obscene amount of money to bring the even shadowy-er pharmaceutical company exec Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend). Krebs is working for some unseen money-men looking for blood samples collected from the largest of the remaining dinosaur population to produce lucrative medical products. The team Krebs assembles includes research scientist Dr Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) and transport specialist Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali). Screenwriter David Koepp was one of Spielberg's original 1993 Jurassic writers and he goes back to the heart of what made that film so great. The greatest amongst those things I think is its character interplay. There's no need to force some unnecessary sexual tension between anybody and there's enough emotional rawness in each of the characters' backstories - and we're far enough from the 90s - that greed itself isn't enough of a character motivator. And so the Johansson and Bailey characters can discuss the ethics of what they're doing without the filmmakers forcing a reason for them to drop their shirts, or flirt, or kiss. For anyone who misses that in their family-audience dinosaur film, Game of Thrones star Ed Skrein is dressed in such skin tight Lycra, which I'm not sure most real-life game-hunting mercenaries would don, that his nipples deserve their own film credit. Writer Koepp has, in his CV, also written for the LEGO PlayStation game versions of the Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones films, and here he and director Gareth Edwards give us plenty of great fan service jokes, like the old "objects in the mirror may appear closer than they are", so that I very much look forward to the LEGO PlayStation game of this film. The performers are all good, and they're all given enough meat and motivation to be more fleshed-out than their future LEGO selves. Among the things to celebrate in director Edwards's approach is shying away from CGI to work with practical effects, puppetry and real location filming where possible, and so the film looks great and doesn't feel HDTV surreal. He took the Star Wars franchise back to its gritty fan-base-loyal origins when he directed Rogue One, opening up a new line of storytelling. I feel he's just done the same for this tired old beast of a money-making film machine. Jurassic World: Rebirth (M, 133 minutes) 3 stars Scarlett Johansson almost single-handedly carries this latest film in the 32-year-old dinosaur action film series. I mean, there are plenty of dinosaur critters, plenty of action, enough dubious characters getting their comeuppance, and some sensible restraint in the writing and the direction - and ScarJo had nothing to do with any of those things. But there's a world-weariness and vulnerability that Johansson brings to her mercenary leading an expedition to the last remaining havens of the world's dinosaur population. Writer David Koepp, director Gareth Edwards and the film's producers don't try and overburden the path her character is on. As aforementioned, it is 32 years since audiences were gobsmacked, just like Sam Neil and Laura Dern's characters were, by a pack of brontosaurus in Steven Spielberg's original Jurassic Park. In this fictional world, it has also been that amount of time, a timeline where dinosaurs escaped their enclosures and joined the world's ecosystems. The jaded New Yorkers of this film's opening scenes are fed up to the back teeth with the traffic jams and interruptions to their routines that a dying Brontosaurus is causing in the city. Our world is a colder place full of new diseases, and since the trilogy of Jurassic films that starred Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt, most of the escaped plague of dinos have been dying out, their second great extinction. Only a thin band of latitude along the equator is climatically suitable. It is here that a shadowy services-for-hire operative Zora Bennett (ScarJo) is offered an obscene amount of money to bring the even shadowy-er pharmaceutical company exec Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend). Krebs is working for some unseen money-men looking for blood samples collected from the largest of the remaining dinosaur population to produce lucrative medical products. The team Krebs assembles includes research scientist Dr Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) and transport specialist Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali). Screenwriter David Koepp was one of Spielberg's original 1993 Jurassic writers and he goes back to the heart of what made that film so great. The greatest amongst those things I think is its character interplay. There's no need to force some unnecessary sexual tension between anybody and there's enough emotional rawness in each of the characters' backstories - and we're far enough from the 90s - that greed itself isn't enough of a character motivator. And so the Johansson and Bailey characters can discuss the ethics of what they're doing without the filmmakers forcing a reason for them to drop their shirts, or flirt, or kiss. For anyone who misses that in their family-audience dinosaur film, Game of Thrones star Ed Skrein is dressed in such skin tight Lycra, which I'm not sure most real-life game-hunting mercenaries would don, that his nipples deserve their own film credit. Writer Koepp has, in his CV, also written for the LEGO PlayStation game versions of the Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones films, and here he and director Gareth Edwards give us plenty of great fan service jokes, like the old "objects in the mirror may appear closer than they are", so that I very much look forward to the LEGO PlayStation game of this film. The performers are all good, and they're all given enough meat and motivation to be more fleshed-out than their future LEGO selves. Among the things to celebrate in director Edwards's approach is shying away from CGI to work with practical effects, puppetry and real location filming where possible, and so the film looks great and doesn't feel HDTV surreal. He took the Star Wars franchise back to its gritty fan-base-loyal origins when he directed Rogue One, opening up a new line of storytelling. I feel he's just done the same for this tired old beast of a money-making film machine.
