New image from Jurassic World Rebirth makes me wish this franchise would remain extinct

Later this year, Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures are reviving their long-running Jurassic franchise for yet another walk in the park. Or in the world at large, I suppose, considering that the last entry, Jurassic World Dominion, saw dinosaurs get out and repopulate planet Earth. Kind of. Because after they repopulated, people just stuck most of them in a nature preserve so that the movie could remind people of other entries in the franchise.

Now, another Jurassic World movie is coming, and it's best if you don't think too hard about it. If it sounds like I'm particularly salty about this, it's because I am. Before we talk about why, check out this new image that Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment released today, showing off the two leads of Jurassic World Rebirth — that's Scarlett Johansson as skilled covert operations expert Zora Bennett and Jonathan Bailey as paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis — looking over a dinosaur nest:

"Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey lead a dangerous mission in #JurassicWorldRebirth," reads the caption for the image. It shows Bailey's Dr. Henry Loomis examining a big ol' dinosaur egg while Zora Bennett watches from the other side of the nest. Screen Rant pegs this as what appears to be a "South American structure"; it's hard to be sure, but that carved stone figure on the wall behind them does seem to confirm it's some kind of ruin from an ancient culture, at least. We'll have to get a real-life archeologist to give it a once over to be sure where it's located.

Jurassic World Rebirth has the makings of a great movie, but still feels like a mistake

So those are the details for this new image. Now let's talk about why the mere sight of it makes me irrationally angry. This is the seventh feature-length installment in the Jurassic franchise, and on the surface, it has all the makings of a good film. It stars good actors like Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, and Mahershala Ali. It's directed by Gareth Edwards, whose last movie The Creator was one of the rare original sci-fi films in recent years, and spectacular at that. Edwards has promised Rebirth will be a "giant love letter to Steven Spielberg" that "goes back to what [he] loves about the original." The screenplay was written by David Koepp, one of the writers who penned the the first two Jurassic Park movies that Spielberg directed. What's not to love?

Well, the fly in the ointment for me comes from the fact that this movie feels like a blatant cash grab by the studio to keep people invested in one of their largest franchises, rather than something that exists because anyone felt particularly compelled to make it. The last film, Jurassic World Dominion, was marketed as a huge crossover event because it brought back Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum, three of the stars of the original Jurassic Park movie. They teamed up with Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, the leads of the Jurassic World trilogy, for a globe-trotting adventure; the intent was pretty obviously to give viewers a breathtakingly massive moviegoing experience. But on the whole, Dominion failed to connect well with critics; it holds a 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score is 77%, which is much better but still well shy of the 91% score for the original.

Dominon came out in June 2022, not even three years ago. To go from something which was marketed as the "epic conclusion" of the Jurassic World saga to a new Jurassic World movie in only three years feels like it undermines the whole point of the last film.

All this is to say nothing of how studios have repeatedly revived the Jurassic franchise, milking it for more and more money regardless of whether it made sense from a creative standpoint. That feels pretty at odds with the spirit of the original novel by Michael Crichton, which was about a corporation reviving dinosaurs to boost their profits by turning them into a cash cow, whether it made sense to or not.

Or I guess maybe it's exactly in keeping with the message of the novel. In its own way, the Jurassic film franchise has become a real-world example of the sort of cautionary tale that the original story tried to tell, draining a vibrant creative property and cultural touchstone dry in the name of constantly refilling the corporate coffers. I guess we're lucky it's only a movie series and not a literal theme park of prehistoric animals.

So yes, I have some very strong opinions about Jurassic World Rebirth. Both the original book and movie were formative pieces of media for me as a kid. (Jurassic Park was my first movie ever in theaters and I wore out our VHS; I still have my battered copy of the book, the first "adult" novel I ever read.) I've talked at length about all the strengths and weaknesses of the various movies in the series, each of which I've enjoyed to some degree. I'm not saying I wish we'd never get another Jurassic movie...just that Universal and Amblin would have given us enough time to miss this magical series before dragging it back from extinction yet again.

But hey, I'd love to be proven wrong! Edwards, Koepp, and all the actors certainly have the chops to make something great. Maybe the new movie will turn out like Dan Trachtenberg's Prey or Fede Álvarez's Alien: Romulus, bringing a breath of fresh air to a long-running franchise. We won't know until Jurassic World Rebirth stomps its way into theaters on July 2, 2025.

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