The Jurassic World Series is Finally Going Back to Basics
Let’s scale things down a bit.
The Jurassic franchise has been growing at an unwieldy pace. After rebranding from Jurassic Park to Jurassic World, the series expanded its scope and cast. However, this didn’t come without a cost, and the latest film, Jurassic World Dominion, ended up being delayed an entire year (and inspiring a terrible Judd Apatow movie).
Now, Jurassic World is bringing things back to basics with a familiar face behind the keyboard, but don’t expect a fully retro adventure.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the next Jurassic World movie will be written by David Koepp, the writer of the original Jurassic Park and its first sequel. That’s about all we know so far, as no director or actors are attached. However, that morsel still tells us plenty about the franchise’s direction.
The Jurassic World trilogy focused on Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), but that could change.
Bringing back an old face is usually a case of returning to basics, like Star Wars going back to J.J. Abrams after The Last Jedi, or Doctor Who turning to Russell T. Davies after Season 13. However, if Universal was truly stripping down the Jurassic franchise, it wouldn’t use the Jurassic World branding at all, so clearly there will be some continuity.
That said, Koepp has a pedigree in both establishing and continuing film icons, with credits ranging from Mission: Impossible and Spider-Man to the last two Indiana Jones movies. That experience, plus his ground-floor knowledge of Jurassic Park, means he’s the ideal choice to shepherd the story into a new and hopefully better chapter. It’s just a matter of what that chapter will be.
Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp will pen the next Jurassic World installment.
It’s not the first time the franchise has tried to harken back to its roots. Jurassic World Dominion brought back Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill, and Laura Dern as Drs. Ian Malcolm, Alan Grant, and Ellie Sattler, the first time the three had shared the screen in almost three decades. In that case, the results were underwhelming, but maybe this is how Jurrasic World will continue to evolve.
Keeping the current name but bringing back old talent could offer a balance between nostalgia and innovation, and the franchise's original voice could help usher Jurassic World into a new era. Dominion failed because it emphasized ludicrous CGI action, but Koepp should know better than anyone that character comes first, even when dinosaurs are involved.
