Jurassic World: Rebirth director Gareth Edwards has opened up about what inspired his fresh take on the franchise, and the influence might surprise you.
Speaking to SFX Magazine for its July 2025 issue, Edwards revealed that Ridley Scott’s 2005 historical epic Kingdom of Heaven played a major role in shaping the visual tone of the upcoming dinosaur thriller.
Edwards said, “John Mathieson was the director of photography and the more I looked at that movie, the more I was like, ‘This is perfection.’ There’s not a bad frame in it.” He praised the film’s cinematography as a key visual benchmark for what he wanted in Jurassic World: Rebirth.
The Rogue One and The Creator filmmaker said that bringing in the right visual team was critical, and he made a point to recruit David Vickery, the VFX expert behind Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Dominion. According to Edwards, Vickery had no plans to return to dinosaurs.
“He was sort of done with doing dinosaur films,” Edwards said. “But I told him, ‘I don’t want this to feel animated. I don’t want it to feel like we’ve anthropomorphized these creatures.’”
Instead, Edwards pitched a grounded, natural approach. He told Vickery he wanted every shot to be based on actual wildlife footage. “Essentially, every single shot in this movie is based on a piece of existing footage of a real animal really doing whatever it is that’s happening,” he said.
Jurassic World: Rebirth stars Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey, and centers on a covert team racing to stop a rogue biotech group from unleashing weaponized dinosaurs. As global chaos unfolds, they discover a dark secret linked to the original Jurassic Park legacy.
Edwards also wants to revive the horror roots of the franchise. Speaking to Vanity Fair, he said, “Jurassic Park is a horror film in the witness protection program. People forget how scary it actually was.”
He recalled being terrified watching the T. rex scene as a kid. “It’s one of the most well-directed scenes in cinema history. The bar’s really high,” he added.
Edwards says part of the movie’s fear factor comes from something deep in our biology. “There’s something primal in all of us,” he said. “As mammals, we’ve evolved with a fear of something bigger coming to take us out. When we see it onscreen, that instinct kicks in.”
With epic influences and a gritty horror twist, Jurassic World: Rebirth is shaping up to be a bold new entry in the franchise. It hits theaters on July 2, 2025.
