Jurassic World: Rebirth: New Director? Good Choice?
The Jurassic Park/World franchise is one of the most profitable movie franchises of all time, seven films in and it’s made $6.8 billion at the box office. Despite Jurassic World: Rebirth “underperforming” and only making $875 million, we’re getting another Jurassic movie with Scarlett Johansson and the rest of that cast returning. There’s been a little bit of director change and the latest reports seem a little bit interesting if true. Let’s get started!
The News: Just to be clear right off the top, this is all rumor mill from Jeff Sneider. Sneider is an independent film journalist who revealed last week information about the upcoming Jurassic World: Rebirth follow-up. Gareth Edwards, the director of Jurassic World: Rebirth has decided not to return to direct the next installment due to creative differences. I believe this was reported a few months back and it sounds like a new director has been approached to direct the next film. That director being J.A. Bayona, the director of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the second film with Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. Based on the report from Jeff Sneider, no deals have been made but it sounds like it's Bayona’s gig to take if he wants it.
My Thoughts
First up, I do think that of the Jurassic movies that have the word “world” in them, Fallen Kingdom is my least favorite. I don’t hate the movie, some people treat it like it’s one of the worst blockbusters of the last 10 years. I don’t agree with that, I still have fun with this movie. In general with all of the Jurassic sequels, I do get a lot of entertainment out of watching these movies that have big movie stars and dinosaurs earthing people. Despite Fallen Kingdom having major flaws, it’s still an entirely watchable film.
Second of all, my issues with that film aren’t due to the direction, it’s because of the script. I just think that Fallen Kingdom had a lot of flawed ideas that didn’t quite pan out, the idea of human cloning I don’t think works in the franchise and it's not really explored much in this movie to make it super interesting. But the big positive that I’ll say about the film are the dinosaur sequences and the thrills that are fantastic. He knows how to stage the dinosaur sequences in a way that’s clear to see what’s going on but there’s a number of the moments in that film that do work as dinosaur sequences. There’s one with a T-Rex and Chris Pratt in a cage where he has to jump through the mouth in order to escape, it’s a great little sequence that works largely because of the direction. So, if Bayona was to be given a good script that allows him to deliver the thrilling dinosaur sequences that we want then this could be a good movie and could deliver some of the best thrills since The Lost World: Jurassic Park, which is now almost 30 years old.
My third and final thought is, I don’t think it really matters too much as to who directs a Jurassic movie. I say that because these are big franchise tentpole films. Colin Trevorrow didn’t bring a distinct style to Jurassic World (2015), but he was able to make a big slick $200 million blockbuster and directed easily the best sequel in the Jurassic franchise. Whoever they get to direct Jurassic, I don’t think matters too much because we just need a director that can make solid blockbusters and can have good thrillers. J.A. Bayona can show that he can have great thrills, but he’s also a director that’s only as good as his script. I believe David Koepp who wrote Jurassic World: Rebirth, as well as Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible, and Spider-Man is returning. Rebirth’s script wasn’t anything fantastic, but I don’t think you need a great script to get people to enjoy a Jurassic film. Some people will be annoyed by the lack of a great script, I’m not one of those people.
Final Thoughts: Overall, if it was confirmed in the next week or so that J.A. Bayona will be directing the next Jurassic film, I’d be down for it. Would it be the most exciting and thrilling movie news? No, of course not. But I thought he delivered a great Jurassic experience with Fallen Kingdom, maybe not a great movie overall but that’s fine with me. Honestly, if a Jurassic movie delivers on the fun movie stars and dinosaur action, then I’m satisfied I don’t need a great well crafted script in order to be entertained by this franchise. I saw that but the script of the 1993 original is fantastic and one of my favorite movies of all time.
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