With Jurassic World: Rebirth, the franchise returns not with nostalgia, but with something darker, stranger, and far more unsettling.
The dinosaurs are back. Again. But this time, they’re not here for theme parks, family reunions, or nostalgia. Jurassic World: Rebirth wants to make you uncomfortable – and judging by what we’ve seen so far, it’s going to succeed. This isn’t another round of genetically enhanced spectacle wrapped in blockbuster gloss. It’s something darker. Stranger. More like a fever dream of the original Jurassic Park if it had been directed by someone with a taste for body horror and bad endings. And honestly? I like that.
A New Island, A New Tone
Set five years after the messy fallout of Dominion, Rebirth picks up in a world where dinosaurs are on the edge of extinction – again. Most species have died out due to environmental collapse. But there’s one place where a handful still survive: a remote island that once housed InGen’s most extreme genetic experiments. The kind of creatures that weren’t meant to be studied. Or named. Or maybe even seen.
Scarlett Johansson plays Zora Bennett, a geneticist sent on a mission to extract DNA from the last surviving dinos – material that could supposedly be used to develop a life-saving drug. She’s joined by paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) and ship captain Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali). You already know how this goes: limited intel, limited resources, and an increasingly limited chance of survival.
The trailers waste no time setting the tone. There’s an aerial egg heist involving a Quetzalcoatlus, a Mosasaurus attack in open water, and a jungle scene that feels ripped straight out of a nightmare.
The D-Rex Is Not Your Friend
Rebirth’s big new horror is the Distortus Rex – or D-Rex – a (literally) twisted offshoot of the T-Rex that looks like it crawled out of a rejected Alien storyboard. According to director Gareth Edwards, “It’s kind of like if the T-Rex was designed by H.R. Giger, and then that whole thing had s*x with a Rancor”.
'JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH' will feature a new mutant-dinosaur species, with the design inspired by: T-Rex Rancor Xenomorph(Source: https://t.co/nDaHXrIrvB...) pic.twitter.com/DZ0LfBdzAN
ILM’s David Vickery adds: “Gareth wanted us to feel sorry for it as well as terrified, because its deformities have caused it some pain”. That mix of violence and vulnerability might end up being one of the most unsettling things the franchise has ever done.
Also new to the fold: flying raptor hybrids called Mutadons, straight out of writer David Koepp’s nightmares. “We saw in some of the previous Jurassic World movies that their experiments made dinosaurs bigger, meaner, scarier,” Koepp told Empire, “and it occurred to me and Steven [Spielberg] that those can’t all have gone well.” Clearly.
It’s Not About The Science (It Never Was)
Rebirth doesn’t pretend to be a film about genetic engineering or pharmaceutical ethics – not for long, anyway. What it really wants is to trap its characters in a place where the rules don’t apply anymore. Director Gareth Edwards told Entertainment Weekly, “Once you're on the adventure, the film doesn't let go until the end credits. The enjoyment of it is in the moment-to-moment chase, escape, scare, horror, curve balls in the whole plotting of the set pieces and the dinosaur moments.”
That approach feels different – less polished, more primal. The trailer plays like survival horror with a blockbuster budget. There’s even a moment lifted directly from Michael Crichton’s original Jurassic Park novel, a lagoon sequence that never made it into the 1993 film. Now it’s here, and it looks like it’ll be one of the most tense, drawn-out scenes in the franchise.
A New Cast, And A Clean Slate
Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard are out. In their place, a cast that feels like a reset: Johansson, Bailey, Ali, along with Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Luna Blaise, David Iacono, and Ed Skrein. No legacy characters have been confirmed, but the door isn’t exactly closed.
Johansson, for her part, has wanted this for a long time. “It has been a life long dream to be in a ‘Jurassic’ movie,” she said at Universal’s CinemaCon presentation. “For the last 15 years I’d reach out and say I’m available here”. She even went directly to Spielberg. “I told him I’d play any role even if I’m eaten in the first five minutes.” To which Edwards replied: “Spoiler alert.”
The Date’s Set – And It’s Close
Jurassic World: Rebirth hits theaters on July 2, 2025, and if the studio’s current schedule holds, that date isn’t moving. With multiple teasers now out and the tone firmly established, it feels like Universal is doubling down on a version of the franchise that dares to be weirder. Colder. More dangerous.