Director Gareth Edwards will direct his Jurassic World sequel at Sky Studios Elstree this year ahead of its release in 2025.
Production is moving necessarily fast on the next Jurassic World film, with Gareth Edwards and his collaborators working to meet the pre-defined release date of July 2025 set by Universal Pictures.
We heard last month that filming is expected to get underway in July; in the meantime, Universal has confirmed that the sequel will film this year at Sky Studios Elstree in the UK.
The announcement was made in the wake of British chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s spring budget today (6th March) in which he announced some new tax breaks for film and TV studios as well as tax credits for UK-based indie films with budgets less than £15m.
The boss of Sky Group, Dana Strong, hailed Mr Hunt’s tax breaks in one of those press statements that sounds much funnier if you imagine it read out in the voice of a Dalek.
“Today’s announcement brings confidence to the sector,” Strong said in a statement published by Variety, “unlocking job opportunities whilst providing a stable foundation for the investments of tomorrow in the UK, such as our proposal for Sky Studios Elstree North and the filming of NBCUniversal’s Jurassic 4.”
It’s worth noting that Strong refers to the film as simply ‘Jurassic 4’ there – which sort of implies there are plans to use a word other than ‘Park’ or ‘World’ in its title. Or perhaps pretend the Jurassic World movies never existed, and instead continue on from Joe Johnston’s Jurassic Park III (2001)? Or maybe they’ll just call it Jurassic Gareth.
Speaking of Gareth Edwards, the filmmaker behind Rogue One, The Creator and Godzilla has talked excitedly about filming at Elstree in his own statement.
“Watching Star Wars as a child, I always assumed blockbuster filmmaking was just a distant dream for someone growing up in the UK,” Edwards said. “But then, as I watched the behind the scenes, I suddenly realized it was all filmed in a studio just outside of London [….] And now as we organise shooting the new Jurassic Park film in ‘a studio just outside London,’ I hope we inspire other new filmmakers to shoot small, but always dream big.”
Shooting the next Jurassic film places the production in esteemed company; as well as 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining were all shot at least in part at Elstree.
David Koepp, who wrote the original Jurassic Park script (based on Michael Crichton’s novel) is also writing Edwards’ Jurassic film, and it’s beginning to sound like a reboot of sorts, with none of the cast from the Jurassic Park or Jurassic World films returning here. Getting in a director like Edwards – known for his grounded, indie approach for filmmaking – suggests we might be in for something a bit more back-to-basics next summer.
More on the new Jurassic as we get it.
