Jurassic World Rebirth

Universal kept Mahershala Ali alive. Then it lost Gareth Edwards.

Gareth Edwards is not coming back for the Jurassic World Rebirth sequel. Variety confirmed the Rogue One director left over creative differences in August 2026, after a film that pulled about $870 million worldwide and a visual-effects Oscar nomination. Universal and Amblin put out the usual warmth. "We had an incredible experience working with Gareth on Jurassic World Rebirth." David Koepp already wrote a follow-up. latestnetflix.com's view is that Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey are expected to return.A new director is not named.,

That is a lot of money to walk away from. It is also a franchise that cycles filmmakers after each reboot. Edwards shot the 2025 picture in Thailand, Malta, and the U.K. On a compressed clock after David Leitch and Edgar Wright passed. Jennifer Lawrence turned down Zora Bennett. Glen Powell passed on the paleontologist that went to Bailey. Johansson had spent more than a decade trying to get into a Jurassic movie and pitched Spielberg once this one was moving. Edwards heard she wanted in and cast her.

The death they filmed, then undid

Ali's Duncan Kincaid was written to die. Edwards told SlashFilm they shot it that way. "The bit we did shoot two versions of is Kincaid living and dying." Universal asked for a live version while the company was still in Thailand, because they were not going back. Edwards later said he was glad they had the surviving cut, because the death played like a downer. Star billing beat the script. The movie still pretends it might kill him until it does not.

The set had its own rumor mill. Edwards told Entertainment Weekly the mangrove scouts found poisonous water snakes, "massive ones that we had to catch." The actors spent a day wading through the same water. "We kept it quiet from the actors," he said. Giant spiders too. "You just wouldn't point them out if you saw them. Just keep going!" He also said the ocean work was so miserable it was "probably the last film I ever shoot in the ocean." Johansson called the Malta boat rigs brutal, baking while cannons fired water.,

A Snickers fight, then a Netflix spike

Product placement got its own argument. Edwards said a confectionery company wanted a wrapper involved in "the downfall of humanity." The first pass "looked like such an obscene advert for Snickers that I couldn't do it." He trimmed it. The snack still appears. Critics still complained.

Rebirth went to Peacock in October 2025, then to Netflix in the U.S. On February 28, 2026, next to the Chris Pratt trilogy. ScreenRant, citing FlixPatrol, said it hit No. 1 on Netflix U.S. The first day. Koepp later told ScreenRant the sequel problem is expansion. The last film made dinosaurs scarce on purpose. "You can't say trilogy. You got to make one good movie." He has not cracked how to grow the island without breaking that logic. Edwards is gone anyway.,