Director Gareth Edwards spoke to Entertainment Weekly about ‘Jurassic World Rebirth,’ starring Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey. In the interview, Edwards described the movie as the start of a new trilogy and a brand-new chapter in the franchise.
According to Edwards, the closest thing to a real Skull Island on Earth is Thailand. He described the diversity of the geography as “very primeval.” The director and his cast, including Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Mahershala Ali, and Rupert Friend, traveled to Southeast Asia to film ‘Jurassic World Rebirth.’
“I’m allowed to say this now that we’re on the other side of it, but we shot in rivers and these mangrove swamps,” Edwards told Entertainment Weekly. “When we were scouting them, we saw poisonous water snakes, massive ones that we had to catch. We kept it quiet from the actors as they spent a whole day wading through the same area. And there were giant spiders that were poisonous and stuff on the edge of the trees. You just wouldn’t point them out if you saw them. Just keep going!”
For ocean scenes, the team moved to Malta. The filmmaker mentioned some “water stunts” that required a tank, though much of the filming was done on the Mediterranean. “It’s probably the last film I ever shoot in the ocean because it was very difficult,” Edwards admitted. “I’m glad we persevered, but I think everybody — all the actors — went through as crazy a journey as the characters in the film, with very physically demanding, sometimes near-death experiences that had high-reward factors if you managed to succeed.”
Since the release of the 2015 ‘Jurassic World,’ which started a new trilogy starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, the franchise’s critical acclaim has steadily declined. The last installment, ‘Dominion (2022),’ reunited Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum but grossed about half as much as the first ‘Jurassic World’ in the U.S. alone.
Zora Bennett, described by Edwards as “a special-ops, ex-CIA type,” is contracted by a company to infiltrate the region and extract DNA from these monoliths. She shares a sibling-like bond with Duncan Kincaid, her trusted ally and the captain of the team’s ship — “He’s kind of like the Ahab of our movie,” Edwards said. Bailey plays paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis, who Edwards described as “out of his depth in terms of the military element of the mission. He’s very comfortable on digs and expeditions but not the life-and-death risks that Kincaid and Zora are getting into.”
“Obviously, it all goes wrong and becomes a situation that you enjoy watching as a Jurassic fan,” Edwards remarked. “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, and the curveballs in the set pieces and dinosaur moments.”
‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ is set to hit theaters on July 2, 2025.
