Scarlett Johansson looks scared in a new Jurassic World Rebirth image, teasing the sequel's return to the franchise's roots. Directed by Gareth Edwards, with a script written by David Koepp, the film follows Johansson as Zora Bennett, a covert operative leading a team on a top-secret mission to infiltrate a forbidden island and extract DNA from dinosaurs. In addition to Johansson, Jurassic World Rebirth's cast includes Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Luna Blaise, David Iacono, and Ed Skrein.

Now, via Empire, a new image from Jurassic World Rebirth was released, showing a terrified Scarlett Johansson, who teased the franchise returning to its roots and being scary again. See the image and her quote below:

It hearkens back to the first one. It has a lot of good jump-scares, and the stakes are high.

Another image of Jonathan Bailey's paleontologist, Dr. Henry Loomis, was released, who also teased that Jurassic World Rebirth does not only "re-inject the thrill and the fear," but it also has the "wonder and awe" of the original movie. See that image and his quote below:

[It's] a love letter [to the '93 original]. It really does feel that it’s welcoming people to really celebrate the original film. It has that wonder and awe, while not being scared to re-inject the thrill and the fear.

What This Means For Jurassic World Rebirth

It's Returning To The Franchise's Roots

Much of the marketing for Jurassic World Rebirth has been centered around it returning to the franchise's roots. One of the signature aspects of Steven Spielberg's original Jurassic Park movie is its scariness, from the T. rex breaking free during the storm, the tense raptor encounter in the kitchen, and the dilophosaurus' venomous spit. However, before the chaos begins, there is a generous dose of wonder and awe – another hallmark of Spielberg's style. While the recent Jurassic World trilogy ramped up the action, Rebirth is also aiming to rekindle that sense of wonder and awe.

Recreating that sense of danger involved traveling to Thailand to film deep in the jungle, echoing how Spielberg once shot in Hawaii decades earlier. "There were really dangerous water snakes swimming past us," says Bailey. "So the fear and adrenaline was as real as it could be." Rebirth brought back David Koepp, who adapted Michael Crichton's novels into Spielberg's original Jurassic Park and its 1997 sequel, The Lost World. Rebirth also takes place at what was once the site of the original Jurassic Park research facility. Koepp says:

We wanted to recapture the idea that we are in the dinosaurs' environment. The last few movies were exploring the idea of, "Hey, what would it be like if they were in our environment?" They did that very well, and now we wanted to explore how it felt to go back to theirs.

Our Take On Jurassic World Rebirth Returning To The Franchise's Roots

It Poses An Inherent Risk

While returning to the franchise's roots provides a strong selling point for the reboot, it also poses an inherent risk. Since Rebirth is aiming to recapture the original movie's sense of wonder and danger, it will constantly be compared to Jurassic Park, which is widely considered one of the best and most beloved movies ever made. It's unlikely that Jurassic World Rebirth, no matter how effective it is, will be able to live up to that, likely setting audiences up for disappointment.

Jurassic World Rebirth releases on July 2.

Source: Empire