David Copp surrendered the universal his “Jurassic World: Rebirth“Script in December 2023. In March 2024, director Gareth Edwards met producers Frank Marshall and Steven Spielberg. Production began three months later, June 13, 2024, and was wound in October last year. For a VFX-heavy blockbuster Behaled for the fourth July weekend 2025, it is a practically unknown turn.
When Edwards was a guest in this week’s episode of filmmaker Toolkit PodcastHe discussed how the most difficult aspect of the shortened production schedule was employed just three months before I photographed.
“It was the same amount of prep that I had on”Monster“As I shot with three of us in a van,” Edwards said, referring to his festival outbreak in 2010, which catapulted him to become a studio director. “Usually you get at least two and a half years from the day they call you, to the day you end the movie.”
It was the schedule that Edwards had on “Godzilla”, “Rogue One” and “The Creator.” When Universal wanted to cut it in half for one of Hollywood’s biggest actors, Edwards tried to shoot back.
“I remember day one, we went to Universal and there were Donna Langley and Peter Kramer, the managers of Universal,” Edwards said. “And I put up my hand,” Yes, Gareth, on the back. “I’m like,” Can we run the release date? “
The movie that meets theaters today, just 16 months after that meeting, shows no signs of being short changed. The action set and visual effects are among the very best since Spielberg’s original. Edwards came up as a self-taught VFX artist and has a reputation for not only being one of the most innovative directors of VFX but also someone whose creative process combines conception with implementation, which leads to much greater efficiency.
“I think I’ve always felt that the process is as important as what you do the product,” Edwards said. “How you do one film Is so basic to me and obviously does this movie (we had to do so). “
Edwards brought on board Jim Spencer, his producing partner on what he called his “two most guerilla” projects, “monsters” and “The Creator”, but not in an attempt to convert the “Jurassic Park” team in their own way.
“Early, (Spencer and I said),” We can’t change the machine, “said Edwards. If you try to fight the machine that is this massive blockbuster, how these (done), if you try to reinvent the process,” oh, we will not shoot it like this, we will spook it.
“I think you can change the machine and do things differently, but there is a limit when you have a really limited time frame with three months pre -production, to get everyone on the same page to reinvent the process massively is not possible,” he said. “It was more like, choose your battles, and my main goal was:“ Let’s go to real places. “
Edward’s philosophy: Although the actual backgrounds will change significantly and be strengthened, even even no longer recognition, is to be in a real place why his VFX-driven films feel so grounded.
The “Jurassic World: Rebirth” could quickly land on a main place was serendipitous. During his first meeting, Spielberg told Edwards that the franchise was looking to move on from Hawaii, which represented the original “Jurassic Park” construction Isla Nublar. For the nearby Ile Saint-Hubert-a Equatorial Island off the South America’s coast, which we once learned a secret lab and created hybriddinosaurs-they were looking for Costa Rica and Thailand.
“I couldn’t be better placed for this conversation because I made” monster “in Costa Rica, and we looked high and low in that country for crazy primordia jungle porter and beaches, and we had just done it with the” Creator “in Thailand,” said Edwards. During the first meeting, he made it clear that Thailand, especially Phang Nga Bay, was exactly what Spielberg wanted. “So everything clicked really fast and it probably saved us some time. I didn’t have to look for all these places because I knew most of them.”
Visual Effects Supervisor and other unit director David Vickery’s team quickly shot pictures of the sites, which became virtual 3D reindeer that enabled Edwards and his collaborators to work practically.
“I told the studio when we started,” we have three months, we can’t make a mini-version of this movie in pre-viz, we don’t have time, “said Edwards.” But then we had virtual cameras, it’s as if there is some volume space and they set it in the office and essentially you could see in real engine
Works practically Edwards can go through their creative process to design the action of a large set and at the same time let department managers find out what they needed to prepare.
“It’s like a puzzle where you don’t have the box, you don’t know what the picture is, but you start walking,” Well, we need a shot like this, “said Edwards.” By going through the movements to shoot these pictures (with a virtual camera) it then allowed other people to go, “I think we will need a helicopter.” “It creates all these ingredients so that production can start to make all these things happen … It’s just like controlled chaos, really.”
Universal releases “Jurassic World: Rebirth” today, July 2.
To hear Gareth Edward’s full interview, subscribe to Filmmaker tolkit podcast on AppleThe SpotifyOr your favorite podcast platform.
