Are you ready for another Jurassic Park trilogy? Because one is currently being planned according to Jurassic Park 3 director Joe Johnston. Late last year the director said “there is a great story for the fourth one” and that he would be interested in getting involved. Now he has confirmed to BoxOffice.com that we will be seeing it in the future, and that it will start a whole new trilogy of dino-films.

You mentioned to Ain’t It Cool that there might be a good script.

Did I tell him? Was it me?

You said that there was no way to get people back on the island for a fourth time and have it make sense, but that 2001 was the last installment and we’re due.

Well, there is going to be a Jurassic Park IV. And it’s going to be unlike anything you’ve seen. It breaks away from the first three—it’s essentially the beginning of the second Jurassic Park trilogy. It’s going to be done in a completely different way. That’s pretty much all I can tell you.

A second trilogy?

If you think of the first three as a trilogy, number four would be the beginning of a second trilogy.

That’s big. So not to lock you in, but there’s a possibility there might be a total of six films?

Well, you never know. If they keep working—and if audiences keep going to them—there’s no reason why there wouldn’t be. We just want to make them justified in their own right. We don’t want to make sequel after sequel just because there’s a market for it. We want to tell different, interesting stories. You don’t want to just sell hamburger.

Johnston’s The Wolfman will be released next month, and then he will be getting ready for Captain America which will begin filming in June. It has not been confirmed that he will be directing the next Jurassic Park film, so they don’t necessarily have to work around his schedule. If things work out and they hire a director we could be seeing dinosaurs back on our screens in the next few years.

For years there has been talk of a Jurassic Park 4, however it has never moved out of the development/scripting stage. In the past we have heard rumours of it revolving around the extinction, and another about dinosaurs with guns attached to them, however it seems those ideas have been scrapped.

While promoting The Wolfman Jurassic Park III director Joe Johnston spoke about a possible return to the franchise:

Joe Johnston: Well, there is a great story for the fourth one that I would be interested in getting involved with and it’s nothing like the first three. It sort of takes the franchise off in a completely different direction, which is the only way I would want to get involved.

Harry: Another movie about a group of people struggling to survive a dinosaur attack is…

Joe Johnston: We’ve done that and it’s been done three times and I figure it’s…

Harry: Stay away from that island. Don’t go there!

Joe Johnston: Why would anybody go back to that island? It was hard enough to figure out the second and third reason for them to go, but it would take it off in a whole other trilogy basically, but when it gets to that level it’s sort of about studios and Steven’s thing and who knows. I think we are at that point where we are due for another one if we are going to do it. They had what four years between them? 1992… 1996 or 1997, and then 2001, so we are past due. I don’t know, but we will see.

We haven’t had a good dinosaur movie in years, so I would welcome a Jurassic Park 4 with open claws. No silly dinosaurs with guns though. I’m glad that script didn’t get the greenlight.

Frank Marshall, who is currently working on The Last Airbender, spoke to ComingSoon.net about a few films that are currently in the pipeline. Marshall produced the entire Bourne trilogy and he gave a small update on the status of Bourne 4, which was announced last October.

“We’d like to shoot next year,” he told us. “It’s trying to get everybody’s schedules in the right place and getting the script right. We’ve done pretty well with these scripts that are pretty loosely put together, but I’d like the script to be really solid this time before we go forward. We’re spending a lot of time on this story.”

He was also asked about Jurassic Park 4, which has been on and off for years. In the past we have heard rumours of it revolving around the extinction and another about dinosaurs with guns attached to them, however it seems those ideas have been scrapped.

“We just have to see if they can come up with a story. We don’t have a story.”

I don’t think we will get to see Jurassic Park 4 for a while, if ever, which is a shame as we haven’t had a good dinosaur movie in years.

Lastly, he spoke about The NeverEnding Story which Warner Bros. announced they would be rebooting in February.

“We love the book and we’ve always thought there was an opportunity (because) there were a lot of elements in the book that weren’t in the movie. It’s another one where we’re still working on the rights and it’s a huge thing to get it. Once we get it, we’ll bring on a writer, but that’s kind of off in the distance. But it’s a great story.”

The last thing we heard about Jurassic Park 4 was that the script would continue to be worked on after the Writers Strike. which took place this time last year. Now, producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy revealed during a junket for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that plans have fallen through for a fourth entry in the Jurassic Park franchise.

From ComingSoon.net

When asked if there was any development on the long-anticipated sequel, Kennedy responded, “No… I don’t know. You know, when Crichton passed away, I sorta felt maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s a sign that we don’t mess with it.”

In my opinion there is currently a lack of good dinosaur movies. When the Jurassic Park franchise was active nobody else really wanted to go in the dino direction. Now if the franchise is officially dead it shouldn’t take long before someone else decides to make a dinosaurs movie. (I hope not anyway because I want myself some T-Rex!)