The director of 2025’sJurassic World Rebirthexperienced a huge disappointment caused by the underwhelming success of his 2023 sci-fi movie, and while his upcoming dinosaur film should restore his confidence, it’ll also hopefully be a stepping stone to other creative endeavors. TheJurassic World Rebirthcastintroduces new actors to the franchise that should provide an action-packed adventure. The long-running series has long been a big box office pull, soRebirth’s director already has an established and proven audienceto engage with his next project.
With theJurassic World Rebirthrelease dateconfirmed as August 23, 2025, fans of the franchise have a little under a year to wait for the series' next era. The man in the director’s chair isn’t the most experienced when it comes to leading the creation of a feature film, but his modest filmography already boasts some huge hits. Unfortunately, notall of Gareth Edwards' movieshave hit the ground running. Fortunately, that hasn’t stopped him from being hired for the nextJurassic Worldmovie.
Gareth Edwards' The Creator Was A Sci-Fi Disappointment & Deserved Better
Edwards' 2023 sci-fi epic failed to meet expectations
Edwards wrote the script for 2023’sThe Creatoras well as directing the movie. The sci-fi epic underperformed at the box office, butThe Creatorwas much better than its figures reflect.The Creatorcost just $80 million to make, which is far less than many of its competitors. Unfortunately, after taking just $110 million at the box office,The Creator’s other substantial costs, such as marketing, meant the movie fell short of a profitable milestone.
The Creatorhas a 67% rating onRotten Tomatoes.
Gareth Edward’s 2023 effort featured an impressive amount of worldbuilding for a standalone movie. WhileThe Creator’s endingwasn’t quite up to the standard set by the rest of the film, the story as a whole was still incredibly entertaining and raised compelling questions about the future of AI. Additionally, Gareth Edwards did an admirable job of guidingThe Creator’s castthrough his story. The movie’s biggest weakness was perhaps the script, but while it wasn’t groundbreaking, it wasn’t terrible either. In short,The Creatorshould have been a much bigger success than it was.
Jurassic World Rebirth Is The Ideal Movie For Gareth Edwards After The Creator
The iconic dinosaur series gives Edwards a chance to reset after The Creator’s disappointing reception
Generally speaking, movies within existing franchises tend to do better than standalone stories or attempts at establishing a new fictitious universe. Edwards will now be fully aware of this after the box office success of 2014’sGodzilla($524m) and 2016’sRogue One: A Star Wars Story($1b) - both of which Edwards directed. While Edward’s directorial talents contributed to these two triumphs, he perhaps had a little less work to do to get audiences into the cinema than withThe Creator. Thankfully,Jurassic World Rebirthoffers him this same advantage.
If Gareth Edwards had gone on to make another non-franchise movie immediately afterThe Creator, it’s possible he would have found the endeavor to be incredibly daunting.
If Gareth Edwards had gone on to make another non-franchise movie immediately afterThe Creator, it’s possible he would have found the endeavor to be incredibly daunting after his 2023 sci-fi project didn’t live up to expectations. By stepping into theJurassic Worldfranchise, the director has the chance to work with the safety net of knowing the final product will be seen by far more people, almost regardless of how good it actually is.That doesn’t necessarily mean Edwards will apply himself any less than he did forThe Creator, but a greater margin for error can be reassuring.
Gareth Edwards Should Return To Non-Franchise Movies After Jurassic World Rebirth
The Creator showed a glimpse of Edwards' true filmmaking potential
Since his directorial debut with 2005’sEnd Day,The Creatormarked Edwards' fourth feature-length production in the director’s chair. That makesRebirthhis fifth and also largely establishes Gareth Edwards as a franchise director. While he’s great at stepping into pre-existing worlds,The Creatorshows a great deal of Edwards' promise when it comes to stories away from big properties. His limited experience when it comes to directing movies makes this more impressive, and while he’s sure to do a great job withRebirth, moviegoers would be missing out if Edwards doesn’t continue to progress with standalone projects too.
Jurassic World 4 Is Repeating 2 Of The Reboot Trilogy’s Worst Mistakes
Jurassic World Rebirth has the opportunity to redeem the franchise, but its synopsis already revealed the reboot is repeating two major mistakes.
So, after Gareth Edwards completes his work on his upcoming movie, his substantial talents should return to projects similar to his 2023 effort. His script forThe Creatorgave the filmmaker his first writing credit since 2010’sMonsters, and he’s shown great narrative improvement during that time - especially considering he created the story from scratch. Therefore, it would be great to see him continue to build on this lesser-used skill as well afterJurassic World Rebirthis complete.
Jurassic World Rebirth
Cast
Jurassic World Rebirth, set five years after Jurassic World Dominion, sees covert operations expert Zora Bennett guiding a team to obtain dinosaur genetic material. Their mission collides with a stranded family on a perilous island, uncovering a long-buried secret.
