• "Jurassic World Rebirth" will effectively be a franchise reset.
• David Koepp, who wrote "Jurassic Park" and "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," returned for the 2025 sequel.
• Koepp told BI he was excited to "start over" and introduce new characters.

"A new era is born." That's the tagline for the upcoming "Jurassic World Rebirth." It's also the ethos for the film's thematic reset.

Universal released the film's first full trailer Wednesday, which introduces brand new characters in the saga and sets the stage for the multibillion-dollar franchise's reset after the poorly reviewed "Jurassic World Dominion."

The movie also marks the return of screenwriter David Koepp, who wrote the first two movies in the franchise created by Michael Crichton: the 1993 original "Jurassic Park" and its 1997 sequel "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," both directed by Steven Spielberg.

Koepp told Business Insider he was elated to revisit the beloved franchise and was eager to start from scratch after the conclusion of the second trilogy led by Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard.

"The chance to start over in terms of tweaking the tone a little bit maybe, and bringing in all new characters, that was really exciting," Koepp said.

He said the goal was "to recapture a spirit and tone" of the first two films in the franchise.

"Those first two movies were some of my favorite writing experiences ever," Koepp said. "It's just a great, fun sandbox to play in."

"Rebirth" follows paleontologist Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), covert operations expert Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), and team leader Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) on a dangerous mission to the research facility for the original Jurassic Park, where they must retrieve DNA from the three biggest dinosaurs — creatures that were "too dangerous" for the original park — for medical research.

Koepp worked to integrate his deep love and knowledge of Crichton's books and the original franchise into the new movie, previously teasing that "Rebirth" would have a sequence from the original Crichton book he'd had to scrap from the original movies. There are also more explicit links to the first movie: Bailey told Vanity Fair that his character has a connection to Sam Neill's Dr. Alan Grant.

Koepp told BI that although "Rebirth" is an original story and is not based on the plots of any Crichton novel, he reread both of Crichton's "Jurassic Park" novels before writing and incorporated "a number of things" from them.

"There's so many little treasures in it," Koepp said of Crichton's "Jurassic Park" books. "It's 800 pages of great moments and great research and just really wonderful ideas."

Though little else is known about the film so far, Koepp is enthusiastic about the end result. "I'm delighted about it," he said. "I haven't seen it yet, but I can't wait."

"Jurassic World Rebirth" will be in theaters on July 2.

• "Jurassic World Rebirth" hits theaters on July 2, 2025.
• The upcoming sequel has a new cast that includes Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, and Scarlett Johansson.
• Here's what to know about the latest sequel of the billion-dollar franchise.

"Jurassic World," a $5.5 billion franchise, is returning to its dinosaur park origins with a brand new star-studded cast.

When it was released in 1993, "Jurassic Park" became a pop culture classic, making $978 million, but its sequels weren't critical or commercial successes.

Over the last decade, Universal successfully revitalized the "Jurassic Park" franchise with a new trilogy, grossing over $1 billion with each "Jurassic World" film.

In August 2024, Universal announced that a new sequel, "Jurassic World Rebirth," would premiere in theaters on July 2, 2025.

A trailer released on Wednesday teases that the film will focus on a squad infiltrating the island that once held the original facility from the first "Jurassic Park" film.

Rob Mitchell, the director of theatrical insights at film industry research firm Gower Street Analytics, told Business Insider in August 2024 that "Jurassic World Rebirth" will likely make over $1 billion like its predecessors.

Mitchell said the franchise is popular enough to survive potential negative reviews, as the last movie, "Jurassic World: Dominion" made over $1 billion with a Rotten Tomatoes critic score of 29%.

Mitchell also highlighted the casting of Mahershala Ali and Scarlett Johansson, whom he said were the biggest stars the franchise has ever hired.

"I think the fact that it has these big star names, like Scarlet, and really well-respected names, like Mahershala Ali, will make people go, 'Well, there must be something interesting in this that they can get these guys to do this movie,'" Mitchell said.

Here's what we know about the sequel, including the new cast and the synopsis.

"Jurassic World Rebirth" is set five years after the last film.

After the events of "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" and "Dominion," cloned dinosaurs coexist with humans on Earth after they are released from an amusement park.

In "Jurassic World Rebirth," — set five years after "Dominion" — dinosaurs live in isolated areas around the world because "the planet's ecology has proven largely inhospitable" to them.

A team of scientists and operation experts discovers that three of the largest dinosaurs hold the key to a drug that could help humankind and go on a trip to secure DNA samples from each creature.

But when the operation collides with a civilian boating expedition, they all find themselves stranded on an island with "a sinister, shocking discovery that's been hidden from the world for decades."

Mahershala Ali, Scarlett Johansson, and Jonathan Bailey play the lead roles.

Oscar-winner and Marvel star Johansson plays the main character, Zora Bennett, a covert operations expert who leads the team trying to find the dinosaurs.

Oscar-winner Ali plays Zora's team leader, Duncan Kincaid, and Jonathan Bailey stars as a paleontologist, a scientist who studies fossils, called Dr. Henry Loomis.

Rupert Friend plays Martin Krebs, a Big Pharma representative. Philippine Velge, Bechir Sylvain, and Ed Skrein, whose character names have yet to be revealed, round out the team.

"The Lincoln Lawyer" star Manuel Garcia-Rulfo plays Reuben Delgado, the father of the family who collides with Zora's team. Luna Blaise, David Iascono, and Audrina Miranda play the rest of Reuben's family.

It's unclear if the original "Jurassic Park" actors will return for the sequel, but almost all major characters are still alive at the end of "Dominion," so they could still return.

"Jurassic Park" screenwriter David Koepp will pen the script, while Gareth Edwards, the director of 2014's "Godzilla," will direct the new sequel.

The "Jurassic World" cast is unlikely to appear in the new sequel.

The last three "Jurassic World" films established a new cast led by Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, but there have been no reports that they are returning.

Pratt told the Today Show in May 2022 that "Dominion" felt like a finale to the franchise.

Chris Pratt is live with us on the plaza! 🦖 pic.twitter.com/DkitwygiuP

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) May 5, 2022

"This is the sixth Jurassic film, and it's the end of this franchise," Pratt said. "I really do think it's the end. You've got the legacy cast back, Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum, plus the cast of Jurassic World all converged, our storylines converging in a way that is very much a finale."

But Howard told People in August 2022 that she was excited to see the franchise continue, though she believed the next film would have a "largely different cast."