Jurassic World Rebirth hasn’t been subtle in its marketing, emphasizing a return to the roots of the beloved summer blockbuster-turned-sprawling franchise. Hell, the movie’s title nods to this concept quite directly. A recently released trailer, doubling as a behind-the-scenes featurette, aims to solidify the film’s mission statement and put butts in theater seats, promising to deliver the same thrills as the original movie did and then some.
In the aptly titled “Classic Jurassic” featurette, stars Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey (Wicked, Final Fantasy XIV), and Mahershala Ali (Moonlight) reinforce that their film is “going back to the basics,” made for fans of the original films. All of the above waxed poetic about how Jurassic World Rebirth, in typical Jurassic Park fashion, will introduce new dinosaurs, harken back to the original, and essentially be a survival story, with a more naturalistic cinematic quality thanks to being shot on film.
While their glowing praise is expected for actors starring in a film following a trilogy that grossed $1 billion at the global box office, screenwriter David Koepp and director Gareth Edwards offered a bit more insight into why they pursued making a new film in the first place. Edwards, for instance, revealed that upon reading the script for Jurassic World Rebirth, he saw it as a heartfelt tribute to the original director, Steven Spielberg—a sentiment Keopp shared.
In addition to highlighting the film’s comedic moments, Koepp shared his enthusiasm for bringing a notorious underwater sequence from the books to the big screen for the first time.
“The sequence with the raft was in the first novel, Jurassic Park,” Keopp said. “One of the first things Steven and I said was, ‘We gotta get that raft sequence in some place.’”
Set five years after Jurassic World Dominion (the one with Chris Pratt and the dinosaur-human hybrid clone girl), Jurassic World Rebirth sees humanity and dinosaurs sharing the planet as unwitting roommates. As our ecology becomes progressively unwelcoming to our new scaly overlords, the Earth’s prehistoric climate is forcing the surviving vestiges of humanity to live on the outskirts of the world.
To give a semblance of balance to a world that opened Pandora’s box decades ago, a task force must harness the DNA of three dinosaurs to create a life-saving drug. Naturally, these three dinosaurs are of the land, sea, and air variety pack, so acquiring their DNA will be a hassle for the film’s heroes, on top of being hunted down by a new biofreak monster dinosaur.
Rebirth features Johansson as Zora Bennett, a top covert ops specialist leading Dr. Henry Loomis (played by Bailey) on said mission to secure his groundbreaking research. Ali plays Duncan Kincaid, Zora’s trusted ally, while Rupert Friend portrays a pharmaceutical executive named Martin Krebs. Manuel Garcia-Rulfo rounds out the ensemble as Reuben Delgado, a father whose family becomes entangled in the crew’s mess after a devastating shipwreck.
“For anyone who loves the original Jurassic films, this is the movie for you,” Bailey said. “I know that it will bring back the wonder of seeing Jurassic Park for the first time.”
Hopefully, the new Jurassic World film will live up to its lofty promise to evoke the same merriment, awe, and thrills of its predecessor when it hits theaters July 2.
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