Jurassic World Rebirth Writer Sees The New Movie As A Chance To Start Over

For screenwriter David Koepp, 2025 might be best remembered as the year where he reunited with two guys named Steven. He's currently on the press circuit promoting his script for Steven Soderbergh's unconventional ghost story "Presence" after having worked with the director previously on 2022's pandemic-era thriller "Kimi," and this summer, audiences will see the fruits of Koepp's reunion with another Steven — Mr. Spielberg, who is executive producing "Jurassic World Rebirth," which just missed a slot on /Film's Most Anticipated Movies of 2025 list

See, Spielberg asked Koepp, who wrote the first two "Jurassic Park" movies back in the 1990s, if he was interested in taking a shot at cooking up a new direction for the "Jurassic" franchise in the aftermath of "Jurassic World Dominion," a movie that made over a billion dollars but which was not beloved by critics or general audiences. With that question posed, Koepp made an observation about the franchise as a whole:

"When Steven [Spielberg] said, 'Hey, do you want to try to come up with a new one?', it had seemed to me that the tone and characters of the movies changed every three movies. So after the first three, it changed into 'Jurassic World,' which was a different tone and wholly different characters, and then that came, it seemed, to a logical conclusion. So ['Jurassic World Rebirth'] seemed like a chance to say, 'OK, what now?'"

Jurassic World Rebirth takes the franchise in a 'new direction'

According to the official synopsis from Universal, this new film takes the "Jurassic" movies "in an ingenious new direction."

"We didn't want to deny any events that occurred," Koepp told me. "[The new film is set] in that world. But how might that world have changed in the last five years, and whose story is this now? So it was a chance to start over, and still play in this incredibly fun sandbox with the enthusiasm of a big studio behind you. It was the best of all possible worlds. And Steven and I got to do the absolute most fun part of filmmaking, which is, 'Hey, what if...' and then you just make up stuff."

Some of the "stuff" they made up: In the five years since the events of "Dominion," dinosaurs have learned that they can essentially only live in climates similar to the ones they operated in previously. The three biggest dinos on the planet "hold the key to a drug that will bring miraculous life-saving benefits to humankind," and it's up to skilled covert operations expert Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) to snag the genetic material that can make that dream a reality. Mahershala Ali is on board as a team leader, there's a stranded family that gets roped into the action, and the synopsis also teases "a sinister, shocking discovery that's been hidden from the world for decades." Color us intrigued.

As for Koepp's reunions I mentioned earlier, the connections don't stop there: He's also reuniting with Steven Soderbergh again for "Black Bag," a spy thriller that hits theaters this March, so stay tuned to /Film for more coverage of all of these films in the weeks and months to come.

You can hear my full interview with David Koepp on today's episode of the /Film Daily podcast:

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