Director Gareth Edwards on shooting Jurassic World Rebirth on real locations, Rogue One, and more besides.
Before February 2024, British director Gareth Edwards had every intention of making another original film following the critical success of his sci-fi thriller, The Creator, released the previous year. Then a phone call from veteran producer Frank Marshall changed everything. Jurassic World Rebirth was looking for a director following the departure of filmmaker David Leitch.
A script was swiftly couriered to Edwards, who read it with a mixture of interest and trepidation; his Hollywood movies Godzilla (2014) and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) had been box office successes, but the experience of making them was challenging to say the least. Edwards later said that both had gone into production without a finished script.
Jurassic World Rebirth, meanwhile, sees screenwriter David Koepp return to the franchise for the first time since Jurassic Park: The Lost World, and as the name suggests, is intended as a fresh start for the 32 year-old franchise. It features a new cast, led by Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey, and a new adventure involving the collection of DNA from three gigantic dinosaurs located on a distant island. But hiring Edwards also sees the franchise adopt a somewhat fresh filmmaking approach.
To Edwards’ surprise, Rebirth’s producers – not least Steven Spielberg – were happy to let him continue the run-and-gun style he employed on his debut, Monsters, as well as on The Creator. On the latter, Edwards used a tiny crew and an almost documentary-style approach to make an effects-filled thriller on a comparatively small budget of $80m. Thanks to Edwards’ background in VFX work, he was able to make his futuristic thriller look as though it was shot for two or three times that sum.
Although parts of Rebirth were filmed on sound stages, a sizable percentage of its exteriors were shot in real-world locations, sometimes with Edwards operating a 35mm Panavision camera himself (this being his first project shot on film rather than digital). It’s an approach that not only helps add to the illusion that dinosaurs still walk the Earth, but also helps reign in the cost somewhat. Where the previous film, Jurassic World Dominion, cost an estimated $425m before marketing, it’s thought that Rebirth is closer to $180m.
Edited for clarity and length, here’s what Gareth Edwards had to say about forcing a star like Scarlett Johansson out on long hikes across Thailand, his feelings about Rogue One, and how his approach to making movies could give filmmakers the creative freedom they once enjoyed in the 1970s…
Did it feel as though, with Jurassic World Rebirth, you could continue the style and approach you used with The Creator? Because some of the filming locations are even the same, I believe.
One of the crazy moments in my life – probably in the top three, if not at the top – was having to go into Amblin to meet Spielberg and pitch my take on a Jurassic film. And as part of that meeting, they said, ‘Well, we’re looking at some different locations – we don’t want to go back to Hawaii. We want this film to feel very different. We’ve been looking at Costa Rica, you know, maybe Thailand.’
And I was like, ‘I just finished a film in Thailand. And when I was reading [the script] it was just screaming those locations. That’s what I was picturing the whole time.’
I’d also shot my first film, Monsters, in Costa Rica, so I knew both of those countries, and I’ve been trying to find similar looking environments. And Thailand is just an embarrassment of riches when it comes to primeval-looking, beautiful paradise islands. So we went straight to an area called Phang Nga Bay, which is where some of The Creator was shot as well. I was really familiar with areas where it’s like, ‘Well, that will give us that, and that could give us that.’
It was good because it was a very compressed schedule.
Did your approach as a filmmaker come up when talking to Spielberg? Because the way that you work is quite different from the usual Hollywood way of working.
It was quite clear, if you do a big film like this, that there’s a certain process. There’s a certain way these films get made. And I was really keen to push the boundaries – the default setting of how these things unfold. And I thought I’d get a lot of pushback from them and I didn’t. For instance, even shooting in all the jungles, there was a lot of conversation early on about, ‘Let’s build a jungle in a soundstage.’ Instead, we went to these national parks in the middle of Thailand, with these ancient trees, and filmed there. Even though it was really hard to get access to these places.
There were beaches where you could only get there on foot. It was an hour walk and, and so we’d have to get there in darkness so that we could start filming when the sun came up. And this is with people like Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali. I kept waiting for them to say, ‘This is insane. We should just pick somewhere way easier to get to.’
But everyone was looking at the visuals, and they knew the film lives and dies by how great it looks. And they were really supportive of that. It made life really difficult. Like, on our first day filming on the coastline, it was monsoon season. So for six hours, we just stood there and got rained on, and there was this little moment of like, ‘Oh, God, what have I done?’ And then the sun came out, and it kind of stayed out for the rest of the shoot. So he got lucky.
All that dirt and sweat that you see on the actors – half of that is just happening for real. And there’s an exhaustion and fatigue that comes across in their performances that I think was sort of baked into the process of making it. Also, we shot some handheld stuff… I’d never shot on 35mm [film] before. It was really important to me that the film had this kind of nostalgic look like the original.
The [cinematographer] was John Mathieson. My background is in visual effects. And I studied to death one of his films, Kingdom Of Heaven. I would argue that it’s probably the best-lit movie of this century. It really blew me away. Every frame of that film is perfection. And so to get to work with him on a film like this was a bit of a dream come true. And his knowledge of shooting on film – he did Gladiator and things like this – his knowledge of how to light.
I’m not young anymore, but it felt to me a bit like trying to re-create what had happened in the past. In the early 80s, there were a lot of these younger filmmakers who were a little bit naive and had never really made big films before, but getting these amazing opportunities, and then they were partnered with these older, more experienced DOPs who had done these classic films shot in Panavision. So it had this really nice quality, because you had the innocence and ambition of these young kids, and then the quality and experience of these directors of photography. The two combined, and you get your films like Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.
So there was part of me that was trying to create that dynamic. I’d never compare myself to those people, but I also felt like this might be my last chance to ever shoot on film. But now, having done it, I’m sold. If I ever do a big movie again, I’m definitely shooting on film again. It looks so good – [with digital] it’s usually quite painful in post [production], and a long process to make images look nice. And with film, you just give it one button press and it looks like all those movies you’ve always loved.
I remember I spoke to you for Monsters when that first came out, and you said then that for a graduation film: a Jurassic Park film of your own. I think you said it was terrible, and you hope nobody ever sees it, or something like that.
Yeah, I think that was probably 30 years ago. I made it with my flatmate, who was graduating in animation. And he had specialised in this brand new thing called computer animation, which in 1996… Jurassic Park came out 93, so it was really fast out the gate. We were messing around with computer graphics, trying to make a little short film. I think we were among the first people to ever try and do it. And he was just,
He was the person who got me fully into visual effects. We lived in the same house together, and in his room, on loop constantly, was The Making Of Jurassic Park. And to the point where we can both quote it. If you give me a line from The Making Of Jurassic Park, I’d be able to say, tell you the next line normally. We got obsessed with it.
So when we came to doing a graduation film, I ended up doing it with him, and we did this monster movie. It was really a love letter to Jurassic Park, to some extent. There was no part of me, back then, that ever thought it would lead to this situation…
My friend doesn’t know what’s going on in the movie, but there’s a little nod to the thing we did when we were at film school. I don’t know how he’s gonna feel about it, but there’s a little moment in the movie that’s a nod to that film we made together. So I’m sure he’ll get a kick out of it when he sees it at the premiere.
Where do you think that your visual sense comes from? Because it’s not just that you’re technically good, with your background in VFX. You have an eye for scale and an eye for composition. I mean, did you grow up drawing and painting or something like that?
Honestly, I can’t agree with you… I don’t agree with what you just said, but it’s very kind of you. But I think I can answer the question.
There’s that whole concept of 10,000 hours, where people put a lot of time into something, you can become better at it… For me, it was doing visual effects for a living. I didn’t want to do it. I wanted to be a filmmaker. I graduated from film school, and I really wanted to make films. And I couldn’t get a job. You know, you can’t go down the Job Centre and choose ‘film director’ as an option.
So I ended up learning computer graphics and doing lots of low budget visual effects and stuff from my bedroom. It’s like in The Karate Kid: ‘wax on, wax off.’ There’s this very laborious task. [Daniel thinks], ‘Why am I doing this? I’m wasting my life.’ And then suddenly Mr Miyagi throws a punch and [Daniel] can block it perfectly. It’s like I was doing visual effects, going, ‘Why am I doing this? This is pointless. I’m just wasting years of my life.’
And I didn’t realise or appreciate it at the time, but what you’re doing is, every single day, you’re trying to make a really nice image. And what happens is, when you shoot with a camera and you get something wrong, you just move to the left or to the right or tilt up or down. When you do computer graphics and you get something wrong, you waste an entire day. It’s the most painful way to learn what makes a good image and a bad image, because it’s really brutal when you get it wrong. You’ve wasted hours and hours. So you learn really well: what to do, what not to do, to make sure it’s all going to work out. And it’s all subconscious.
Then after 10 years of doing that, I picked up a camera to go make Monsters, and it was just this liberating experience, because all those lessons I’d learned in visual effects, because if something was wrong, I quickly move to the right or to the left and fix it. Instead of taking a day, it took like five seconds. It was the ‘wax on wax off’ of filmmaking. So retrospectively, it was all worth it. But at the time, I thought I’d wasted 10 years of my life, to be honest with you.
Almost 10 years have passed since Rogue One, so how do you feel about that film now?
It’s a weird one… I honestly felt that when we made Rogue One, I didn’t get the impression that it was gonna be as well regarded by fans as it’s slowly become over the years. Mainly, the objective of that film was not to be crossing the street and have people shouting at me that I’d ruined their childhood. So it’s really nice…
I would do it all over again, but it was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. There was a lot riding on that film, and we were trying to do things quite differently. But I wouldn’t, if I had a time machine, I wouldn’t have made any different choices. I think it was just the way it was going to be.
Did you feel like it changed much from what you originally intended? Because, you know, there are all sorts of rumours and reports about reshoots.
I mean, when you make a film, it always changes. You’re constantly rethinking it all the way to the premiere. And so it was just like that to some extent. We were just trying to make the best film we possibly could. And so we just kept rethinking it, redoing it, reworking ideas, until they [Lucasfilm] blew the whistle, and that was the end. Even looking at it now – I don’t sit and really watch my films that I’ve made – but I’m sure if we had another week, we’d do some things differently. Filmmaking is like sport: the referee blows the whistle, and that’s the final score. It’s kind of how it works. I feel like we didn’t lose the match, so I’m happy.
So did The Creator feel liberating to make? To go back to something that was so personal? I sensed that you poured everything that you love about science fiction and the sort of films that you like into it.
I think it was a stepping stone. We would try to go the whole way towards the favoured way to make a movie like that with Rogue One. We were trying, as much as we could, to rethink how these films are made, and do them a bit differently. The Creator was a big leap even further to a different production style and method. Obviously, at one side of the spectrum, there’s my first film, Monsters, which is five or six of us in a van. You can’t do that on a big Hollywood movie, but on The Creator, we did. There was a month of filming where there was just a handful of us, and we went to the Himalayas, Cambodia, Indonesia, and shot a month of footage with John David Washington. We literally took him to the Himalayas… it was really exciting to be able to do that.
I was chatting to someone about it yesterday: original movies can be totally successful. The only thing that affects the story of whether they were successful or not is their budget level. If they don’t make their money back, it’s considered not a success. And so really the thing to play with is the budget level. So then the question is: can you make a movie that looks like that, but for a lot less? And I believe the answer is yes. And if it gives you more creative freedom and more control, then that’s super exciting to me.
No matter what happens to this film [Rebirth], I’m very proud of what we’ve done on this movie. I’m just really excited about the future, because these digital tools are allowing more and more filmmakers to make things for less money and be just as ambitious with them. And I think that there’s an opportunity there that I really want to just run through, wholeheartedly, and make films that way. But on a massive film like the ones I’ve done, it’s very hard to pull everybody through that door because there’s a century of things always being done the other way.
As you say, The Creator showed that there’s an alternative way of doing things. It makes me wonder why more filmmakers haven’t sort of taken the same approach.
It’s just hard. No one ever gets fired for doing everything like it was done last time. So it’s very hard to change things. You need the right circumstances in which to do it. But I think people are going to have to do it soon, and I hope it creates this liberating period of filmmaking that we had in the late 70s, where suddenly, if you make things for a lower budget, suddenly this massive amount of artistic control comes your way. You can really take risks and try to make really interesting films. Honestly, I’m really excited about that in the future.
I’m gonna turn 50 when [Rebirth] comes out. And so I feel like there’s not much time left. I’ve really got to go for it with the few films I’ll have left, if I’m lucky enough.
Gareth Edwards, thank you very much.
Jurassic Park Rebirth is in UK cinemas now.
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