The Jurassic Park franchise is going to have to evolve again. Boffo box office returns for last summer’s Jurassic World Rebirth proved that the long-running dinosaur adventure series wasn’t quite extinct, and it soon had a sequel in development. However, that sequel will now go forward without a key creative voice from the original.

Jurassic World Rebirth took place in the wake of the worldwide dino-rampage of Jurassic World: Dominion. The resurrected prehistoric beasts still live in the wilds of the Earth, but they’re now limited to a small band around the Equator. That’s bad news for sleazy pharma executive Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), who wants to collect dino-DNA for use in a new heart drug. His handpicked team, including mercenaries Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) and Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), plus paleontologist Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), soon sets sail for a secret InGen facility. However, they soon find out that it was kept secret for a reason, as it houses the company’s worst mistakes, including the grotesque Distortus rex.

As per the Hollywood Reporter, director Gareth Edwards has departed the in-development Rebirth project over what are reportedly “creative differences.” Edwards was a replacement director on the project himself; it was originally slated to be helmed by John Wick‘s David Leitch, who departed before the cameras rolled on the prehistoric creature feature. The sequel is still expected to feature stars Johansson, Bailey, and Ali, and will be penned by David Koepp, who penned not only Rebirth, but the original Jurassic Park and its sequel, The Lost World. A search for a new director is now underway.

Who Is Gareth Edwards?

British filmmaker Gareth Edwards made his feature film debut with Monsters, an indie sci-fi horror film he both wrote and directed. That got him the gig directing 2014’s Godzilla, the first North American stab at the iconic kaiju since the disastrous 1998 Roland Emmerich film. It proved successful enough to spawn an entire cinematic MonsterVerse of sequels and spin-offs, but Edwards moved on to another gigantic franchise to helm Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Following that, Edwards took his leave from mega-franchises to write and direct The Creator, an eye-popping science fiction movie about a future where global powers clash over artificial intelligence.

A sequel to Jurassic World Rebirth is in development, but will have to move on after the departure of director Gareth Edwards.

via Collider