The Jurassic Park franchise is bringing back Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow to helm the next installment of the dinosaur-fueled cinematic saga, but he’s not the only person returning for the still-untitled Jurassic World 3. Original Jurassic Park stars Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, and Sam Neill will all be returning for the film, too.
Scheduled to hit theaters June 11, 2021, the sequel will bring back the 1993 film’s trio of Goldblum, Dern, and Neill as Dr. Ian Malcolm, Dr. Ellie Sattler, and Dr. Alan Grant, respectively. The casting was confirmed on Instagram via the franchise’s official account.
Little is known about Jurassic World 3 at this point, but franchise producer Steven Spielberg confirmed that Trevorrow will return as writer and director on the film after serving the same roles on the 2015 franchise reboot Jurassic World. That film went on to become one of the highest-grossing movies of all time both domestically and worldwide and currently ranks in fourth place on both box-office charts.
“Colin Trevorrow is going write and direct the third Jurassic World story,” Spielberg told Entertainment Weekly. Spielberg will also serve as an executive producer on the film.
Along with co-writing Jurassic World with his frequent collaborator Derek Connolly, Trevorrow (and Connolly) also co-wrote 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, the sequel to Jurassic World. That film was directed by J.A. Bayona and despite earning $1.3 billion worldwide, it received the worst reviews of any of the five films in the franchise so far. Trevorrow is expected to collaborate with Pacific Rim Uprising writer Emily Carmichael on the third film’s script.
Although it would seem like an easy decision to bring Trevorrow back for the third Jurassic World movie, the filmmaker’s stock has dropped a bit since that film’s record-breaking run in theaters. Trevorrow was dropped from the upcoming Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker in a highly publicized split from franchise studio Lucasfilm, and was eventually replaced by J.J. Abrams. His 2017 film The Book of Henry, which was his next major project after Jurassic World, failed to impress critics or audiences and finished its short run with earnings of just $4.5 million in U.S. theaters.
Although nothing is official at this point, it’s likely that franchise reboot stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard will stick around for a third film, too. Fallen Kingdom found the pair’s characters returning to Isla Nublar to evacuate the remaining dinosaurs four years after the events of the 2015 film. Trouble ensued, and the film concluded with various dinosaurs escaping into the wilds of North America, with Goldblum’s character indicating that the world had entered the “Neo-Jurassic Age,” in which humans would have to learn how to coexist with dinosaurs.
