For years, I (and maybe other Jurassic World fans) have wondered why the Jurassic Universe never fully embraced the mayhem of dinosaurs tearing through big cities. Sure, we’ve seen brief glimpses of raptors in suburban kitchens or T. Rexes eyeing helicopters over San Francisco. But, for the most part, the series has kept its chaos in jungles, islands, and remote facilities. Now, ahead of the upcoming Jurassic World Rebirth, we finally know why, and it has to do with the man who birthed the franchise, Michael Crichton.
Colin Trevorrow -- who wrote all three of the Jurassic World films and directed two of them -- spoke with the The Hollywood Reporter. On the whole, Trevorrow spearheaded that trilogy's direction. During this latest chat, he shared that his restrained approach to urban dinosaur action wasn’t due to budget or scale. It was a creative decision grounded in Crichton’s original vision for the series. According to the filmmaker:
I always applied the same rules to dinosaurs as I would to real animals. When a tiger is set loose in a city, they capture it pretty fast. So the idea that these wild creatures would even want to come close to a city was a question I would always ask, and we managed to find ways to make it make sense.
That internal logic of treating dinosaurs more like unpredictable, instinctual creatures than movie monsters informed how far the director of The Book of Henry was willing to push the premise. While he and his team explored ways for dinosaurs to interact with human civilization, including in Jurassic World Dominion and the animated series Chaos Theory (available with a Netflix subscription), there was always a limit. And that limit was grounded in tone. Trevorrow added:
I think dinosaurs running wild in the streets of a city does take a bit of a step away from what Michael Crichton created, and that was always my feeling. But we did find ways for them to interact with our world as comprehensively as possible. And when I say that, it’s not just the films; it’s our animated shows as well. They did a lot of that, especially the new one [Jurassic World: Chaos Theory].
That distinction, between controlled narrative spectacle and full-on monster mayhem, helps explain why even in Dominion, a film where dinosaurs are loose across the globe, the story remains tethered to rural settings and isolated locations. It’s a nod to Crichton’s science-meets-ethics worldbuilding, where the core tension lies in man's attempt to control nature, not just survive its rampage.
The upcoming Jurassic World Rebirth reportedly returns to a more familiar island setting, continuing the franchise’s preference for contained environments over full-blown city destruction. It also reportedly incorporates scenes and concepts from Crichton’s original Jurassic Park novel that were cut from earlier films, including the long-awaited raft sequence.
Still, Trevorrow is clearly proud of the groundwork he and his collaborators laid for the future of the franchise, across films, series, merchandise, and theme parks. The director shared:
We built something that’s strong enough to move forward, and I’m very proud of that… I also know that pretty much every time a child is born, a new dinosaur fan is born. So I don’t think the interest in seeing dinosaurs is ever really going to run out.
As the Jurassic franchise continues to evolve, don’t expect a full pivot into kaiju territory anytime soon. According to Colin Trevorrow, the franchise’s greatest strength is its ability to stay grounded, even when the subject matter is 40 feet tall and covered in teeth.
The next franchise installment, Jurassic World Rebirth, lands in theaters on July 2 amid the 2025 movie schedule. You can also prepare for the film by streaming all six of its predecessors with a Peacock subscription.
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