Scarlett Johansson Leads New Era in Jurassic World Rebirth

Universal Pictures has released the final trailer for Jurassic World Rebirth, the summer tentpole that aims to reboot the Jurassic World film series. The movie opens on July 2, 2025, a weekend that also coincides with the Fourth of July holiday. Star power is supplied by the likes of Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali; the setting is Jurassic Park’s original research island; and the goals are a combination of high-stakes science and staying alive in the face of dinosaur attacks. This trailer gives fans one final look at what they can expect when Rebirth storms theaters later this summer.

Jurassic World Rebirth is the fourth film in the Jurassic World series, the seventh film in the Jurassic Park franchise, and the sixth directed by someone other than Steven Spielberg, whose 1993 Jurassic Park started it all. This time around, the director is Gareth Edwards, who previously helmed the 2014 Godzilla film. The script is by David Koepp, a Jurassic Park vet returning to the series after previously writing the 1997 sequel, The Lost World.

The official synopsis reveals that the film takes place five years after Jurassic World Dominion and that the planet’s climate has become less and less hospitable to dinosaurs, relegating the surviving dinosaurs into “isolated equatorial hot spots that approximate the conditions of the ancient past.” Nestled in one of these “equatorial hot spot” tropical biospheres is a group of the largest dinosaurs on land, in the sea, and the air. Each one of these dino-Arks has its collection of DNA that holds the key to “a life-saving drug.”

Scarlett Johansson plays Zora Bennett, a specialist in covert operations who is selected to lead the team on a secret mission to recover that very genetic sequence. As you might expect from a trailer (spoiler: one of these animals is sea-based), their mission runs into conflict with a group of civilian boaters on vacation when an aquatic dinosaur attack forces them onto an island populated by dinosaurs and … something else much darker and more dangerous.

The Cast

A wide variety of actors, some well-known, others less so, fill out the cast for Jurassic World Rebirth. In addition to Johansson and Ali, we see Rupert Friend as pharmaceutical representative Martin Krebs, who has his unsavory reasons for tagging along; Jonathan Bailey as paleontologist Henry Loomis; and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Reuben Delgado, the father of the shipwrecked boating family. Reuben’s children are Luna Blaise, David Iacano, and Audrina Miranda, while Bechir Sylvain is a member of Zora’s team. Ed Skrein and Philippine Velge also make appearances in undisclosed roles.

The final trailer liberally recycles footage from the first trailer released in February. This is a common practice in the film business, when the first teaser is given to be revealed to the world before the film’s release to give fans a taste, while the movie’s release date is still several months away, and that second trailer is reserved for the months immediately preceding the film’s release. As such, this trailer doesn’t provide a whole lot of new information, but it does set the mood for the rest of the summer action movie: over-the-top, “jump in your seat” moments punctuated by footage of characters being munched on by various dinosaurs.

The trailer also has a new element, a big heist-like set piece: a theft of a pterosaur egg, likely that of the Quetzalcoatlus northropi, which one character refers to as “basically a flying carnivore the size of an F-16.” We also get glimpses of familiar dino-stars like raptors and an exciting new aquatic dinosaur, a mosasaur. From dialogue, we learn that this island was purposefully used to contain “the worst of the worst”: dinosaurs that were deemed the most dangerous and volatile.

Jurassic World Rebirth does not look like it is toning down the franchise’s DNA, despite being presented as a reset. The return to the original Jurassic Park research island will hopefully mine the long-time fans for nostalgia, while the new villains should keep the story unpredictable. The final trailer nails down the bones of what should be another installment in the franchise: a team of badass specialists, moral ambiguity, high-concept science, and dinosaurs ravaging just about everything in sight.

The trailer is also filled with action sequences: tight escapes, people running through jungles, boats sinking, a spear gun mounted on a rock crawler, and several characters just plain munched on by dinosaurs. There’s also a chance that Johansson’s Zora Bennett will change up the usual run-and-hide tone and imbue the series with a tactical, elite-operations element.

Jurassic World Rebirth opens nationwide on July 2, 2025—right in time to make a huge splash over the holiday weekend.