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Credit: Universal PicturesJurassic World Rebirth is one of the year’s biggest box office successes, having grossed $868.9 million worldwide. But the seventh film in the series didn’t escape heavy criticism.
Audiences and critics praised the action and the dinosaur set pieces, but the script, characters, and reliance on genetically altered mutant dinosaurs came under heavy fire from longtime Jurassic fans.
Still, with that many ticket sales under its belt, a sequel is inevitable, and reports claim that Universal Pictures is already getting the ball rolling on a new film, with director Gareth Edwards and the Scarlett Johansson-led ensemble in talks to return.
Still, even with that much success, it’s fair to say that the series has run out of ideas. The idea of dinosaurs flourishing all around the world was very appealing to audiences, but Rebirth did away with that concept faster than you can say, “Clever girl”. What’s left to explore? Mutant dinosaurs did little to keep Rebirth‘s head above water, and the thought of another film with grotesque T.rexes and flying raptors sounds incredibly dull. So then, now what?
Well, there might be some uncharted territory yet — which is in no way a good thing.
Long-time Jurassic fans will remember the concept of human-dinosaur hybrids from an early draft for Jurassic Park 4, written in the early 2000s. That script featured militarized human-raptor hybrids — a project so bizarre it was swiftly abandoned.
Eventually, Jurassic Park 4 became Jurassic World (2015), and although that film featured trained raptors and strictly dino-hybrids, it dodged walking, talking dinosaur soldiers. However, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) may have subtly introduced a human-dino hybrid into the mix with the Indoraptor. Thankfully, that dinosaur doesn’t walk and talk like a human.
But Rebirth may have set the groundwork for a version of that Jurassic Park 4 script.
Related: ‘Jurassic World’ May Be Done With Dinosaurs, ‘Rebirth 2’ Could Introduce Ice Age Beasts
The film’s closing sequence involves covert ops expert Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), her teammate Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), and paleontologist Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) escaping Ile Saint-Hubert with the Delgado family and a baby Aquilops.
The problem is that the Aquilops, “Dolores”, is a mutant dinosaur like all the others that inhabit InGen’s third island. Could she unleash a virus upon the human race that transforms people into hybrid-dinosaur creatures? And if not her, then the DNA linked to a cure for heart disease Zora and Loomis now possess, which is also derived from mutant dinosaurs?
It sounds completely far-fetched, we know, but then so do mutant dinosaurs. Either way, Rebirth may have left the door wide open, and the most controversial idea in Jurassic Park history may finally be preparing to hatch. And if the quality of the script for Rebirth 2 is anything like the first one, it’s probably either human-dino hybrids or dinosaurs in space.
Jurassic World Rebirth stars Scarlett Johansson (Avengers: Endgame), Jonathan Bailey (Bridgerton), Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (The Lincoln Lawyer), Rupert Friend (Obi-Wan Kenobi), Mahershala Ali (The Green Book), Luna Blaise (Manifest), David Iacono (Dead Boy Detectives), Audrina Miranda (Lopez vs Lopez), Philippine Velge (Station Eleven), Bechir Sylvain (BMF), and Ed Skrein (Deadpool).
How would you feel about seeing human-dino hybrids in the Jurassic franchise? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!