Gareth Edwards Exits ‘Jurassic World’ Sequel Due to “Creative Differences”

Universal and Amblin are moving forward with the next ‘Jurassic World’ movie, but Gareth Edwards is not expected to return as director following “creative differences,” per Deadline.

Edwards, quite wisely, is instead turning his attention to other original projects while the studio begins searching for a replacement. He’s talented, and this was the right move on his part.

Scarlett Johansson’s covert ops expert, Zoe Bennett, will lead the film. Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali are also expected to return for the sequel, with production tentatively planned for 2027 and David Koepp — uh oh — having written the latest version of the screenplay.

“Jurassic World: Rebirth” hauled in a staggering $870M at the worldwide box office. Plot-wise, it picked up five years after ‘Dominion.’ Dinosaurs now exist in scattered pockets across the globe, and humanity believes it has things under control. Johansson’s Bennett leads a mission to extract DNA samples from the three largest creatures across land, sea, and air — genetic material rumored to hold the key to revolutionary medical breakthroughs. Things, naturally, go off the rails.

Back in 2024, Edwards (“The Creator” and “Rogue One”) actually took over directing duties after original ‘Rebirth’ helmer David Leitch dropped out of the project due to — you guessed it — “creative differences.”

I thought Edwards would be a great replacement. Given his background in both sci-fi and monster movies, he, more so than Leitch, was a genuinely better match for the Jurassic World franchise, I wrote. Sadly, after watching ‘Rebirth,’ I came away disappointed. It was not good.

Of course, Koepp’s clumsy script was partly to blame — flat writing and a tired plot that felt stitched together from leftover scraps of past sequels.

This left me thinking: it’s been 32 years since “Jurassic Park” came out, and frankly, that’s still the only worthy film in the series. Yes, ‘The Lost World’ wasn’t well-received when it came out, but compared to the nonsense we’ve been getting since, its stock has quietly risen. At least Spielberg was still behind the camera, and there were some interesting ideas — even if the execution was messy. It was also the darkest chapter of the franchise.