However, the upcoming Jurassic World 4 is not necessarily guaranteed to replicate the box office success of its predecessors. The critical standing of the series fell off considerably, with the later Jurassic World sequels earning only 46% and 29% critical ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. This could deter moviegoers from checking out Jurassic World 4, which might be why Jurassic Park’s original screenwriter David Koepp is scripting the reboot. Koepp wrote both the original Stephen Spielberg-directed Jurassic Park movie and its most critically successful sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. However, the scribe’s presence alone won’t solve Jurassic World 4’s bigger problems.
Jurassic World 4 Already Looks Like It Could Struggle To Meet Its Release Date
Bullet Train director David Leitch was attached to the upcoming project when it was first announced but, as he has amicably parted ways with the reboot, Jurassic World 4 doesn’t have a director or a cast. Despite this, Koepp’s Jurassic World 4 will ostensibly be released in July 2025, meaning it should realistically start filming immediately – at least in the next couple of months. Unless the reboot comes together incredibly quickly and without any hiccups, it seems vanishingly unlikely that the projected release date will be met. To make matters worse, Jurassic World 4 is a complete franchise overhaul.
While it is a good thing that none of the original or reboot trilogy’s characters will appear in Jurassic World 4, this obviously puts the creators in a trickier position. With no cast members returning, the project has no stars to speak of and no director to get viewers invested. Jurassic World: Dominion’s messy ending means that bringing back the characters from Jurassic Park or Jurassic World would be a bad idea. However, Jurassic World 4 somehow managing to cast a whole new lineup, find a director, film the reboot, and complete post-production in little over a year seems absurdly optimistic.
Universal Cannot Rush Jurassic World 4
Universal clearly wants Jurassic World 4 to be a huge, guaranteed hit, judging by the summer tentpole release date the movie has received. The problem is that the franchise has already been suffering with a case of diminishing returns, as both Jurassic World sequels were even more critically disliked than 2001’s underwhelming Jurassic Park III. Universal could be betting on the sheer financial power of the series, arguing that even those less successful sequels earned over a billion each despite their reviews. However, this is a risky basis for an expensive project like Jurassic World 4, especially if it is thrown together in a little over a year.