Gareth Edwards, the director of 2014’s Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, is seemingly in talks to direct the upcoming new Jurassic World movie. Universal Pictures previously announced that the next Jurassic World feature would arrive by summer 2025. Now it looks like negotiations are in place for Edwards to take the director’s chair.
The 2014 Godzilla reboot was a commercial success for Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Entertainment, earning over $500 million worldwide at the box office. It also received positive reviews from critics and fans, officially kicking off Legendary’s Monsterverse that’s still going on today with the upcoming Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. The 2014 movie was mainly praised for its strong direction from Edwards, which really emphasized the colossal size of the monsters clashing on-screen.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Universal and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners are close to hiring Gareth Edwards to direct its next Jurassic World movie, which has reignited interest in the upcoming title. Negotiations previously fell through with David Leitch, the director behind John Wick, Deadpool 2 and Bullet Train.
If Edwards does accept the deal, it would mark his return to franchise filmmaking. Last year, the director said he never meant to do IP and initially wanted to make his own movies but he landed a “lottery-winning” deal to direct 2014’s Godzilla. Edwards stated in the IGN interview:
“I never meant to do IP. I honestly thought what I would do with my career, if I had one, is my own ideas, one after the other. And then I just got offered this amazing, lottery-winning thing of getting to do Godzilla, teleporting straight to the Super Bowl final.”
After Edwards directed Godzilla and Rogue One, he directed last year’s original sci-fi epic, The Creator. He had humble beginnings with the 2010 indie hit movie, Monsters.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
