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Credit: Universal PicturesJurassic World 4 (2025) is one of three upcoming Jurassic sequels, but it’s the only one that’s gearing up to retcon the entire franchise. Hold onto your butts.
Production on Jurassic World 4 (2025) is underway. While we don’t know any plot specifics, Variety has revealed that the seventh installment will be “a completely fresh take launching a new Jurassic era, following three adults and three teens getting stuck on the island.”
So far, the cast includes Scarlett Johansson (the Marvel Cinematic Universe), Jonathan Bailey (Bridgerton), Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (The Lincoln Lawyer), Rupert Friend (Obi-Wan Kenobi), Luna Blaise (Manifest), David Iacono (Dead Boy Detectives) and Audrina Miranda (Lopez vs Lopez). Mahershala Ali (Leave the World Behind) is also in talks to star.
Recently, Scarlett Johansson broke her silence on the film, describing the script as “incredible.”
Variety has also reported that filming started on June 13 in Thailand, where it’s expected to last until July 16, after which production will move to studios in the UK and Malta.
@reelnewshawaii on X (Twitter) has shared several pictures of the Thailand locations in questions regarding the production of Jurassic World 4 — all of which are photographs of the jaw-dropping natural beauty that will serve as “the island” in the upcoming film.
However, one they recently uploaded shows a very interesting set that has been constructed at Huay To Waterfall within the Khao Phanom Bencha National Park in Krabi, which looks like an “ancient ruin.” Check it out below:
[Edited for clarity] A better look at the Jurassic World 4 (SAGA) set being built at Huay To Waterfall in Krabi, Thailand. Looks like some sort of ancient ruin entrance which leads to a view of the falls. Filming to take place this location June 20-24.
A better look at the Jurassic World 4 (SAGA) set being built at Huay To Waterfall in Krabi, Thailand. Looks like some sort of ancient ruin entrance which leads to a view of the falls. Filming to take place this location June 20-24. pic.twitter.com/tBBLs4ejaA
— Reel News Hawaii (@reelnewshawaii) June 16, 2024
Needless to say, we have many questions about this new set. For starters, what do ancient ruins have to do with Jurassic Park? Of course, as the film will presumably take place on a new island, the ruins could simply be there and have nothing to do with the dinosaurs.
Either way, it’s possible the island in the film is yet another breeding ground for genetically engineered dinosaurs like Isla Sorna, AKA Site B, or a regular island that has become overrun with dinosaurs now that they’ve been unleashed upon the entire world.
Related: ‘Jurassic Park’ Official Sequel: Everything We Know
With all that said, as confusing as the image might be, this sort of look would make for some welcome new aesthetics for the series — after all, we’re quite bored of man-made laboratories.
After all, while the latest sequel, Jurassic World Dominion (2022), promised new worldwide locations, we only got a handful of such places such as Malta and the Sierra Nevada Forest. For the most part, the film takes place in another jungle and another facility.
Still, even with an entirely new aesthetic that would feel more like Indiana Jones than Jurassic Park, the idea that Jurassic World 4 will return to its jungle roots and take place on an island, abandoning the dinosaurs-living-with-humans concept, is also quite boring.
However, we still have one more question about this image — and it’s a big one. Is this an ancient island not dissimilar to Skull Island from King Kong? In other words, will Jurassic World 4 introduce “natural” dinosaurs, ones that survived extinction 65 million years ago?
Related: All 4 Upcoming ‘Jurassic Park’/’Jurassic World’ Sequels Explained
For a franchise that revolves around the concept of genetically-engineering extinct dinosaurs using fossilized DNA (and the DNA from modern animals to complete gaps in the genome sequence), this sounds absurd. But the idea isn’t completely foreign to Jurassic Park.
“The Lost World” (1990) novel from Michael Crichton, which the 1997 movie sequel is loosely based on, leans quite heavily into the idea that dinosaurs may have survived the cataclysmic event that wiped them out at the end of the Cretaceous Period.
Of course, this doesn’t turn out to be the case — Ian Malcolm and his fellow scientists learn that reports of dinosaurs appearing on mainland South America can once again be traced back to InGen. Only this time they’re coming from a second island: Isla Sorna, AKA Site B.
But why then, are there so many conversations and debates around dinosaurs having potentially survived the “K-T Boundary” throughout Crichton’s best-seller when it’s simply a sequel to “Jurassic Park” (1990)?
For starters, the characters don’t know for certain that it’s InGen to begin with. Also, Ian Malcolm is trying to refute the theories of relentless paleontologist Richard Levine, who believes it’s a possibility that dinosaurs may have survived.
Another reason is in the title of the book itself — “The Lost World” is a play on the 1912 novel of the same name by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in which dinosaurs have survived for tens of millions of years on an isolated jungle plateau in South America.
Related: ‘Jurassic World 4’ Everything We Know: Plot, Cast, Release Date, Trailer, and News
With all that said, there are absolutely no “natural” dinosaurs anywhere in the Jurassic Park franchise, no matter where you look, whether it’s video games, comic books, or any other form of tie-in media.
However, movie franchises are no stranger to evolving — just look at the latest Planet of the Apes film series, for instance.
What started out as a modern-day sci-fi thriller about genetically-enhanced apes in a San Francisco facility is now a futuristic film series set hundreds of years from now in which the latest generation of super-intelligent primates have evolved into the dominant species.
While Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) appeared to be making efforts to put the franchise on a similar path to Apes, Jurassic World Dominion missed the perfect opportunity to capitalize on the concept of dinosaurs now living among humans.
Even though the logline from Variety sounds pretty bare-bones (humans stranded on an island — so what?), perhaps Jurassic World 4 is set to do for the franchise what Dominion failed to do. Maybe the film will have a few tricks, twists, and turns up its sleeve.
But with that said, there’s the evolution of a franchise, and then there’s the complete retconning (or “de-evolution”) — just look at what’s currently happening with Star Wars.
The new Disney+ Star Wars series The Acolyte (2024) has been a complete disaster for Disney Star Wars, largely because its third episode retcons the Force, thus completely undermining George Lucas’ vision as depicted in the original six films.
If there have been natural dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park universe all along — who knows, it may also be the case that InGen never created dinosaurs but instead cloned living ones they discovered in some remote region on the planet — then Universal Pictures could have a similar backlash on their hands when the new film is released next year.
Jurassic World 4 will be released in theaters on July 2, 2025.
Would you like to see natural dinosaurs in Jurassic World 4? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!