David Koepp set out some ground rules for the Jurassic World franchise when he returned to write Rebirth. In a new interview with The Wrap, the scribe behind Jurassic Park — among many other hits — explained that he got “very few guidelines” on this new installment, “except there must be dinosaurs in it.” To narrow the scope a little bit, he settled on three guiding principles for the script.
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Koepp compared his rules for Jurassic World to the famous “Nine Commandments” that animator Chuck Jones set down for his creations, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. These are worldbuilding principles to keep the exaggerated, cartoonish and fantastical elements of a story from going too far and breaking the audience’s immersion. Koepp easily found Nine Commandments for his Jurassic script as well, saying: “Number one was – the events of the previous six movies cannot be denied or contradicted, because I hate a retcon.”
That’s great news for fans of any of the movies, even if there are some retcons you might like. Avoiding retcons altogether is the simplest way to proceed. Koepp continued to explain that his second rule is: “All science must be real,” meaning that the genetic experimentation behind these dinosaurs and other clones needs an explanation that is at least theoretically plausible.
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Koepp’s third rule was that “humor is oxygen,” but he didn’t share any more of those. They strayed into the territory of movie spoilers, including the driving motivation of the villain. Still, what he did share is useful to those trying to predict the movie and get a sense for its tone. The fact that the movie will not contradict any of its predecessors is particularly helpful — it confirms that the big swings like human clones, genetic crop sabotage and designer monsters all still stand.
Koepp wrote the script for Jurassic Park back in 1993 — based on the novel by Michael Crichton — as well as The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997. He left the franchise after that, though he continued to work extensively with director Steven Spielberg. Koepp said he was drawn to “The idea of starting afresh” with Rebirth, though the franchise is also rooted in nostalgia for him.
“Writing those first two movies were some of my favorite experiences in my career so far,” he said. “The combination of grand adventure and real science is right up my alley. And it was fun to be able to decide on a new tone, because every three movies seems like a good time to change tone and characters in a franchise. It was great to be able to work solely with Steven and make up a story and think of all new characters and all in a different tone.”
Jurassic World Rebirth hits theaters on July 2, 2025. The original trilogy of movies is streaming now on Starz, while the Jurassic World trilogy is a big harder to track down. Jurassic World is available now on Hulu, Fallen Kingdom is only available on PVOD stores and Dominion is streaming on Starz.
