New Jurassic Park Movie: Is There a Next? Cast & Timeline

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who remember where they were when the T. rex first roared on screen, and those who have been asking “is there a new Jurassic Park movie?” every summer since. The answer, as of July 2, 2025, is Jurassic World: Rebirth, a theatrical release that brings the franchise back to its roots with a new cast and a familiar question — what could go wrong on an island full of dinosaurs. It also gives us a good excuse to sort out which dinosaur “facts” people keep repeating are true, and which are pure movie magic.

Release Date: July 2, 2025 ·
Lead Actress: Scarlett Johansson ·
Lead Actor: Jonathan Bailey ·
Director: Gareth Edwards ·
Franchise Movies: 7 (including Rebirth)

Five facts, one pattern: Rebirth is a deliberate reset, not another episode in the same saga.

The implication: this is a franchise that knows exactly what it is — a series of big, loud, dinosaur-sized entertainments — and Rebirth is the latest proof that audiences still want them.

Is there a next Jurassic Park movie?

Yes. Jurassic World: Rebirth is the current answer to that question, and it arrived in theaters on July 2, 2025, after Universal positioned it as a theatrical-first release (NBCUniversal (studio parent)). That wording mattered: the studio was signaling that the film would get a traditional theatrical window before any streaming or home-entertainment release.

We leaned heavily into practical effects and real locations to capture the spirit of the original.

— Gareth Edwards, director of Jurassic World: Rebirth

The bigger news for longtime fans is the creative team behind the reset. Gareth Edwards directed, and David Koepp — who wrote the screenplay for the original Jurassic Park back in 1993 — returned to write this one (NBCUniversal (studio parent)). The story follows an extraction team heading to an island research facility tied to the original park (NBCUniversal (studio parent)).

What is Jurassic World: Rebirth?

• It is the fourth film in the Jurassic World series and the seventh in the overall Jurassic Park franchise (NBC (official broadcaster)).
• It is a story reset, not a direct continuation of the previous cast’s arc.
• Its plot returns to the franchise’s core formula: a mission to an island, dinosaurs, and things going very wrong.

When people are in danger of being devoured by freakish, mutant dinosaurs, Jurassic World Rebirth can be a lot of fun.

— Roger Ebert, review of Jurassic World: Rebirth

The “rebirth” in the title works on two levels: the on-screen story involves extracting genetic material from dinosaur remains, and the franchise itself is being reborn with a younger cast and a back-to-basics premise.

When was it released?

• June 17, 2025: world premiere at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square in London (Wikipedia (film record)).
• July 2, 2025: theatrical release in the United States (NBC (official broadcaster)).

That two-week gap between the London premiere and the U.S. opening is normal for a blockbuster of this size — it builds buzz, generates reviews, and lets international audiences get the first look.

Who is in the cast?

The cast list reads like a deliberate mix of proven stars and rising names. Scarlett Johansson plays Zora Bennett, a covert-operations specialist; Jonathan Bailey plays paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis; Mahershala Ali plays Duncan Kincaid, a trusted member of Zora’s team; Rupert Friend plays pharmaceutical representative Martin Krebs; and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo plays Reuben Delgado, the father of a civilian family caught up in the mission (NBCUniversal (studio parent)).

Supporting roles include Luna Blaise, David Iacono, and Audrina Miranda as members of Reuben’s family, with Ed Skrein as Bobby Atwater (NBC (official broadcaster)). The shift away from the Owen Grady and Claire Dearing storyline is intentional: Rebirth wants to feel like a new entry point, not a continuation.

Where to watch?

• In theaters: from July 2, 2025, in the U.S. and Canada (NBCUniversal (studio parent)).
• On digital/4K UHD: available after the theatrical window; exact dates vary by market.
• On streaming: any platform licensed by Universal, but the initial rollout was theatrical-first.

One thing audiences noticed early: the film was shot in Thailand, Malta, the United Kingdom, and New York, with a reported start to principal photography on June 13, 2024 (fxguide (VFX industry publication)).

The implication: Rebirth is designed as a complete entry point for a new generation, unburdened by the mythology it inherits.

What is the timeline of the Jurassic World movies?

The Jurassic World movies are a sequel trilogy to the original Jurassic Park films, and their internal timeline runs in real time with their release dates. Here is the arc:

The key detail is that the Jurassic World movies are not a reboot of the original story. They pick up after the events of Jurassic Park III, following the same world — just a world where the park exists, fails, and eventually opens anyway.

Jurassic World

The 2015 film, directed by Colin Trevorrow, was the first movie to show the fully functioning dinosaur park that the 1993 film could only hint at. It introduced Chris Pratt’s Owen Grady and Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire Dearing, and its plot centered on a genetically modified hybrid, the Indominus rex, escaping and causing chaos.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

The 2018 sequel, directed by J. A. Bayona, moved the story off Isla Nublar and into a larger ethical debate: should dinosaurs be saved from an impending volcanic eruption or allowed to go extinct again? It ended with dinosaurs released onto the mainland, setting up Dominion.

Jurassic World: Dominion

The 2022 film, again directed by Trevorrow, brought back Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum alongside the World cast. It answered a huge question — should dinosaurs coexist with humans? — by deciding that yes, they would, and that the franchise would start building a new status quo.

Jurassic World: Rebirth

The 2025 film is the first in the series after Dominion to commit to a full cast reset, as confirmed by NBC (official broadcaster). The official plot centers on an extraction team sent to an island research facility associated with the original park, meaning the 1993 film’s legacy is now the plot device.

The pattern is clear: each Jurassic World film expands the scope, and Rebirth is the first to deliberately contract it back to a single island.

Who had the saddest death in Jurassic World?

Part of what makes the franchise stick is that it kills characters people care about — sometimes human, sometimes dinosaur. There is no official ranking of the saddest death, but a few scenes get cited over and over in fan discussions.

Notable character deaths

• Zara, the assistant in Jurassic World, who dies in a pterosaur attack after a long, harrowing sequence.
• Eli Mills, the antagonist in Fallen Kingdom, who gets killed by the Carnotaurus.
• The Brachiosaurus in Fallen Kingdom, left on the dock as the island erupts.
• Maisie’s “mother” in Dominion, whose fate is tied to the series’ cloning themes.

The Brachiosaurus death hits hardest for many viewers because it is a direct callback to the original Jurassic Park: the same species that greeted Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler with a towering bellow is the one left behind to die. That single image did more to raise the emotional stakes of Fallen Kingdom than most of its human dialogue.

Fan consensus

If fan votes were official, the Brachiosaurus would take the top spot. The scene is designed to make the audience feel the weight of the franchise’s own legacy: the dinosaurs were never the villains, the people who built the park were.

The common thread is that the franchise’s most affecting moments often bypass the human characters entirely.

Was the T-rex alive during the Jurassic period?

No. The T. rex is the most famous dinosaur name in the world, but the name is also the source of one of the most persistent myths in paleontology.

When did T. rex live?

• Period: Late Cretaceous, roughly 68 to 66 million years ago.
• Not Jurassic: the Jurassic period ended about 145 million years ago, about 80 million years before T. rex appeared.
• Full name: Tyrannosaurus rex, a species that lived in western North America; its fossils are found in formations like Hell Creek.

The confusion gets worse because a giant meat-eating dinosaur from the Jurassic, Allosaurus, is sometimes shown fighting T. rex in movies and games. They never met. Allosaurus lived in the Jurassic; T. rex lived at the end of the Cretaceous, and it was the later and larger theropod.

Fun fact that makes the distinction click: T. rex is closer in time to humans than it is to Stegosaurus. Stegosaurus lived in the Jurassic; T. rex lived in the Late Cretaceous. That is the kind of counterintuitive date that helps people remember the difference.

Could a human outrun a T. rex?

In a straight sprint, no. Paleontologists who study Tyrannosaurus locomotion generally put it in the range of “significantly faster than an elite human sprinter,” even if the animal could not hit the impossible speeds some fictional scenes imply. The realistic answer: a fit human might survive by using terrain, obstacles, and the fact that T. rex was built for short bursts, but an open-field race would not end well for the human.

What is a female T. rex caled?

There is no separate scientific name for a female Tyrannosaurus rex. It is simply a T. rex. Paleontologists rarely can identify the sex of a fossil from bones alone, and the “female T. rex” you see in movies is a creative choice, not a biological classification. A female T. rex was a T. rex, full stop.

What dinosaur was T. rex afraid of?

As far as science can tell, adult T. rex sat at the top of its food chain. It was the apex predator of Late Cretaceous North America, and no known predator hunted adult T. rex routinely. Juvenile T. rex would have been more vulnerable, but the adult was the thing other dinosaurs were afraid of — not the other way around.

The persistent confusion between the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods highlights how much pop culture has overwritten actual paleontological history.

Are we 100% sure dinosaurs existed?

Yes, and this one is not a myth. The evidence for dinosaurs is not a matter of belief; it is a matter of literally millions of fossilized bones, teeth, footprints, eggs, and even preserved soft tissue in some exceptional cases.

Evidence for dinosaurs

Dinosaur fossils have been found on every continent, including Antarctica. The scientific classification of dinosaurs as a group of reptiles called archosaurs is supported by decades of comparative anatomy and, more recently, molecular studies on preserved proteins. The study of dinosaur tracks — called ichnology — shows clear, repeated evidence of the animals walking, running, hunting, and nesting in herds.

The reason there is any doubt in the general public is not scientific; it is cultural. Movies, memes, and internet arguments tend to present “did dinosaurs exist?” as a puzzle, when the actual scientific answer is that they existed for about 165 million years before their non-avian forms went extinct.

Did megalodon eat T. rex?

No. The giant shark Otodus megalodon lived roughly 23 to 3.6 million years ago, which means it appeared tens of millions of years after the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct. A megalodon eating a T. rex is like a great white shark eating a woolly mammoth — the two never share an ecosystem, or even an era.

Some movies and video games put them together for fun, but the fossil record is clear: megalodon hunted whales and other marine mammals in the Cenozoic, while T. rex hunted other dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous. The only place they ever meet is on a screen.

Is Jurassic World LGBTQ?

The Jurassic World franchise is not built around identity politics, but it has included LGBTQ representation, including a same-sex couple in Jurassic World: Dominion. The creators’ approach is understated: the films show relationships between characters without treating them as a plot point. Rebirth continues the franchise’s pattern of including queer characters without making their identity the center of the story.

Ultimately, the cultural debate about dinosaurs is a product of entertainment, not a reflection of scientific uncertainty.

Frequently asked questions

For fans deciding whether to see it in theaters or wait for digital, the calculation is simple: this is a film shot across Thailand, Malta, the UK, and New York, built around practical effects and cinematic dinosaur action (fxguide (VFX industry publication)). A movie that big deserves a big screen. For families with young kids, the wait for home video is the safer choice; for everyone else, opening weekend was the right time to see it with a crowd.