Jurassic World Rebirth was hyped up in a major way during the Universal panel at the CinemaCon event in Las Vegas

There’s a new entry in the Jurassic World franchise heading our way, with Jurassic World Rebirth set to reach theatres on July 2, 2025 – and, of course, the film was hyped up in a major way during the Universal panel at the CinemaCon event in Las Vegas with director Gareth Edwards and stars Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali taking to the stage.

Johansson has wanted to be in a Jurassic movie for a long time. “This time, I went to Steven Spielberg directly and told him I’d play any role, even if I was eaten in the first five minutes,” she said. “So it’s an incredible honour to be here with Jurassic World Rebirth.” She added that they wanted to put the scares back into the franchise and filmed on location in Thailand for more realism.

The audience was treated to some footage from the film, which kicked off with a creepy dinosaur escaping from a lab and butchering some of the techs. Jonathan Bailey plays a scientist who needs an egg, and Johansson and Ali play the mercenaries protecting him. Things go wrong, as they always do in this franchise, and the gang are in very serious trouble. Our own Chris Bumbray said there’s a great scene with the team battling a dinosaur at sea, with loads of action and horror. Johansson delivers a very physical, action heroine performance. Bumbray added that Rebirth looks “a lot” better than any of the recent Jurassic World movies, and we should be seeing a new trailer soon. I can’t wait!

News of the new Jurassic World movie first hit back in January of 2024, when it was revealed that the screenplay had already been written by original Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp, returning to the franchise for the first time since The Lost World: Jurassic Park. The project was assembled in a mad scramble after that, with Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story director Gareth Edwards ending up at the helm. This new Jurassic World movie won’t be featuring any returning lead characters from the previous Jurassic Park / Jurassic World movies, so describing it as a “Rebirth” could be accurate. The characters played by Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, and Laura Dern are out, as are the ones played by Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard.

The new characters are played by the likes of Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Jonathan Bailey (Bridgerton), Mahershala Ali (Green Book), Rupert Friend (Obi-Wan Kenobi), and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (The Lincoln Lawyer) – all of whom had their roles directly offered to them. Luna Blaise (Manifest), on the other hand, had to (according to Deadline) “beat out a number of actors” to land her role. David Iacono of The Summer I Turned Pretty, child actress Audrina Miranda, Philippine Velge (Station Eleven), Ed Skrein (Deadpool), and Béchir Sylvain (Diarra from Detroit) are also in the cast… along with a bunch of hungry dinosaurs.

Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley are producing the film for Kennedy/Marshall. Steven Spielberg is executive producing through Amblin Entertainment. Universal’s executive vp of production development Sara Scott and creative executive Jacqueline Garell are overseeing the project for the studio. 

Here’s what we’ve previously heard about the plot: Jurassic World Rebirth sees an intrepid team racing to secure DNA samples from the three most colossal creatures across land, sea and air. Five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion, the planet’s ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs. Those remaining exist in isolated equatorial environments with climates resembling the one in which they once thrived. The three most colossal creatures within that tropical biosphere hold the key to a drug that will bring miraculous life-saving benefits to humankind. Johansson’s character is Zora Bennett, “a skilled covert operations expert contracted to lead a team on a top-secret mission to secure genetic material from the world’s three most massive dinosaurs. When Zora’s operation intersects with a civilian family whose boating expedition was capsized by marauding aquatic dinos, they all find themselves stranded on an island where they come face-to-face with a sinister, shocking discovery that’s been hidden from the world for decades.” Bailey is playing paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis, with Ali as Zora’s most trusted team leader, Duncan Kincaid.