Jurassic World Rebirth: It’s Time for the Franchise to Get Scary Again

The trailer for Jurassic World Rebirth has dropped, and mainstream moviegoers have certainly taken notice. Suddenly there’s renewed discussion of the entire Jurassic Park / Jurassic World series, and where Rebirth fits within that legacy. One immediate takeaway that many viewers had after watching the Jurassic World Rebirth trailer was that this seventh installment looks much darker, scarier, and more thrilling than what we’ve gotten from the franchise in its most recent installments. And that’s the best thing the franchise could be doing for itself, right about now.

It’s time for the Jurassic World franchise to take things back to the more horror-themed roots of the franchise.

Jurassic Park Was Always A Horror Story

The original Jurassic Park novel by author Michael Crichton is unabashedly a horror-thriller with the usual Crichton science/sci-fi influences mixed in. What made the book a bestseller was largely the experience of being an edge-of-your-seat page-turner; anyone who has read the novel knows all too well (and some were critical of it) that director Steven Spielberg lightened the tone of the story and leaned into the childlike wonder of seeing dinosaurs alive alongside humans on the big screen. But even with those creative changes, Spieldberg’s 1993 Jurassic Park movie adaptation became a worldwide phenomenon because it, too, delivered the edge-of-your-seat thrill ride that audiences went to theaters in droves to experience (and then experience again).

Even Jurassic World Rebirth director Gareth Edwards has acknowledged that the original Jurassic Park had a horror-movie edge that was lost in later sequels:

“Jurassic Park is a horror film in the witness protection program,” Edwards told Vanity Fair. “Most people don’t think of it like that. We all went to see it as kids. But I was scared shitless, 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.”

Longtime Jurassic World franchise producer Frank Marshall teased that Jurassic World Rebirth‘s story premise – an extraction team sent to retrieve genetic material from the original Jurassic Park testing lab on a remote island – isn’t just a narrative soft-reboot, but an opportunity to reboot the genre influence on the films:

“You’re in a new place, you don’t know what’s around the corner. You’ve got a different jungle, you’ve got more water, you’ve got higher cliffs,” Marshall said. “There’s a little bit of everything that’s scary.”

“These are the dinosaurs that didn’t work. There’s some mutations in there,” Marshall added. “They’re all based on real dinosaur research, but they look a little different.”

Jurassic World Rebirth Will Tap Into Primal Fear

Gareth Edwards summed-up his directorial approach to Rebirth by explaining the core themes that will create the horror and thrills of the film: “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.’”

While every Jurassic Park and/or World film has obviously offered the threat of wild dinos chomping on humans, it’s undeniable that the sequels never really got out from under the self-awareness of the first film’s success to really achieve any sort of pure genre enjoyment – and the box office achievements of the original Jurassic Park made sure that the studio (Universal Pictures) always made sure the films were family-friendly (enough), thereafter. Hence, no sequence in the series has ever had the terrifying impact of Spielberg’s original T. Rex attack on the tour caravan – no bigger jump scares than the raptor breaking through the wall to attack Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) or nearly mauling our Alan Grant in the kitchen. Jurassic World Rebirth is looking to change all that. As Mahershala Ali ominously teases: “There’s no draft of the film where everyone survives.”

Jurassic World Rebirth has a release date of July 2nd.