Obviously the Jurassic Park concept originated with novelist (and sometime filmmaker and TV show creator) Michael Crichton. But the screenplay for the iconic film adaptation was credited to Crichton and David Koepp, who then went on to also write the first sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park (and then, after that, all sorts of huge movies, including the first Mission: Impossible and Spider-Man, plus War of the Worlds, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and loads more).
Koepp didn’t return for Jurassic Park III, or for any of the subsequent Jurassic World movies — but now he’s reportedly written a script for a fourth Jurassic World film. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “the project, which has been flying under the radar, is far enough along, and the script in a well-liked shape, that the studio [Universal] is whispering of a possible 2025 release date.”
READ MORE: Every Jurassic Park Sequel, Ranked
Although they don’t have any details on a story, THR refers to it as part of “a new Jurassic era“ which would “seem to rule out the return of the characters played by Jurassic World stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard.”
The last Jurassic World, 2022’s Jurassic World: Dominion not only featured Pratt and Howard, it brought back the central cast of the original Jurassic Park as well: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum. In the film, which was largely marketed as the final Jurassic World (ha ha), dinosaurs have managed to escape the confines of the various Jurassic theme parks and are now roaming free around the planet. The old and new casts teamed up to expose an evil tech magnate and evade more dinos. (Locusts were also inexplicably involved. Locusts!)
Despite all the star power, the film got negative reviews. Still, it made plenty of money; more than $1 billion around the world, in fact. So even if it was intended as the last in that initial trilogy of Jurassic Worlds, it’s not shocking Universal would still want to make another one. And hey, if the guy who wrote the first Jurassic Park is writing it, that’s enough to make me curious what he has in mind.
Jurassic Park Easter Eggs in Jurassic World: Dominion
The finale of the Jurassic franchise is filled with callbacks to the earlier movies. Did you spot these?
