Jurassic World Rebirth director Gareth Edwards may be putting his own spin on the blockbuster franchise, but he has addressed the secretive “Nine Commandments” laid down by the original Jurassic Park screenwriter. Set to arrive in theaters on July 2nd, the seventh film in the long-running franchise sees David Koepp, writer of 1993’s Jurassic Park and its 1997 sequel, return 28 years after penning The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Inspired by the work of animator Chuck Jones and his own commandments for the Roadrunner cartoons, Koepp developed his own list of rules to help guide his work on the new film.
Speaking with ScreenRant’s Liam Crowley ahead of Jurassic World Rebirth’s US theatrical release, Edwards was asked if he was made privy to Koepp’s Nine Commandments while making the movie. Revealing that while Koepp never revealed the full list of his commandments to Edwards, the screenwriter would occasionally pull them out to win an argument, and, as such, had only heard two of them. Check out his comments below:
No. No. He would just bring them out when he needed to win an argument. So he would be like, ‘Wow, commandment number four.’ And so I only heard about two of them.
Edwards would also go on to elaborate about one of Koepp’s key rules, which was the need to balance the film’s humor and horror elements. Suggesting that by including more moments of levity it was also possible to introduce more scary moments to the film and maintain a delicate narrative balance. Harkening back to the original Jurassic Park, Edwards suggested that the franchise’s first movie contained more jokes than many audience members might remember. Check out his final comments below:
I think the one of them was something like, he’s got a more eloquent way of saying it, but it was essentially that the movies are fueled by fun and humor. The more that you have, the more you can be scary. It’s like you get a horror token every time you crack a joke. And if you watch the original Jurassic Park and you sit there with a clicker, there’s way more jokes than you give credit. There’s a lot of humor in that film, but you wouldn’t walk away going, it’s a comedy and you wouldn’t walk away going, it’s a horror because they sort of balance each other out.
And that’s what we tried to do. We tried to kind of make it fun and funny, but then serious and a bit shocking. And so there’s always a moment where you’ve got the audience in a certain feeling and you go, ‘Okay, now we can do a really funny joke.’ And then after a bit of humor, you go, ‘Okay, now we can scare the s–t out of them.’ Do you know what I mean? So it’s like this little back and forth that can happen.
What David Koepp’s Commandments Mean For Jurassic World Rebirth
The New Movie’s Rules Look Set To Return To The Franchise’s Roots
The latest title in the Jurassic World franchise is somewhat fitting, as this latest movie is poised to directly harken back to the original movie that started it all. Not only does Koepp’s script return to the initial concept of humans entering the dinosaurs’ world, after the franchise’s most recent trilogy flipped that dynamic on its head, Koepp even sought to incorporate a famous rafting scene that was initially cut from 1993’s Jurassic Park.
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Despite Edward’s humorous assessment that Koepp’s only used his commandments to win arguments, the idea of establishing a key set of organizing principles only serves to highlight the insight that comes with being the veteran screenwriter responsible for crafting the franchise’s first hit. While Edwards may not have been privy to Koepp’s commandments in their entirety, the concept of intentionally balancing Jurassic World Rebirth’s humor and horror, demonstrates a keen awareness of exactly the kind of ingredients that helped make the original Jurassic Park the benchmark against which all other sequels have been measured.
Our Take On Jurassic World Rebirth’s Script Rules
Fans Will Likely Try To Decode Koepp’s Commandments From The Finished Product
Even though Koepp may still be the only one privy to his Jurassic World script rules in their entirety, knowledge their existence will likely prompt many commentators and film devotees to begin speculating exactly what they may be. With the release of Jurassic World Rebirth now just a matter of days away, perhaps the exact nature of those rules and how they came to benefit the film’s script will become far more apparent, especially if the franchise’s latest sequel manages to recapture the same appeal as the movie that started it all.
- Release Date
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July 2, 2025
- Runtime
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134 Minutes
- Director
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Gareth Edwards
- Writers
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David Koepp, Michael Crichton