‘Jurassic Park’ Films May Be Facing Extinction, as Disappointing Update Shared

Jurassic World Rebirth (2025) was marketed as the start of “a new Jurassic era.” But it seems the writer behind last year’s box-office hit doesn’t know what should come next.

Speaking to Screen Rant, screenwriter David Koepp, who also worked on the original Jurassic Park (1993) and The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), admitted that continuing the franchise presents a major challenge. According to Koepp, the question is how to expand the story “in a logically and in a scientifically believable way.”

First of all, that’s a curious concern given that Rebirth introduced mutant dinosaurs.

“You can’t say trilogy. You got to make one good movie. So now what about another good movie? How would we do that?” Koepp said.

He added that while the idea was to have Rebirth take place in a more restricted location, that shift now presents its own challenges going forward, explaining:

“I think that the challenge of Rebirth was the franchises have become very big, very spread out. Let’s make the dinosaurs special again by restricting them. So we restricted them to this thing, and then the challenge becomes, okay, now how do we logically and in a scientifically believable way expand? That would be the question. If somebody can answer that, I think you’ll have a next movie.”

It’s an unexpected admission considering reports have already suggested another Jurassic film could be targeting a 2028 release.

Koepp’s comments arrive a year after Jurassic World Rebirth grossed $869.1 million worldwide. Financially, the film was a success. Creatively, however, it sparked intense debate among fans.

Directed by Gareth Edwards, the sequel effectively abandoned the franchise’s post-Jurassic World Dominion (2022) status quo by revealing that dinosaurs had largely disappeared from the planet. Rather than coexist with humanity around the globe, surviving species were suddenly confined to isolated equatorial regions.

That decision frustrated many fans because it undid years of storytelling established by Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) and Dominion that carried over into other Jurassic media.

Ironically, Koepp had already admitted last year that he scrapped the “dinosaurs everywhere” concept because he “didn’t have a single idea” where to take it after Dominion. Now, he seems to be confronting the same problem again.

The situation leaves the Jurassic franchise in an unusual position.

Rebirth was commercially successful and clearly leaves the door open for future stories, but there appears to be no obvious direction for a direct sequel. Universal has yet to officially announce another film, despite persistent reports that development is underway.

For now, the only new Rebirth content comes from the Rebirth Expansion for Jurassic World Evolution 3, which fills in several gaps left by the movie itself.

Whether Jurassic continues down Rebirth‘s path or pivots once again remains to be seen. But Koepp’s latest comments suggest the franchise’s future is far less certain than its box office numbers might indicate.