A species of dinosaur is coming out of extinction for Jurassic World Rebirth. The new movie — which sends Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey to an island research facility for the original Jurassic Park — centers on a crucial mission to collect DNA from the three most colossal creatures across land, sea and air: the largest known sauropod of all time, Titanosaurus; aquatic carnivore Mosasaurus; and the flying Quetzalcoatlus.
Those dinosaurs hold in their DNA the key to a drug that will bring miraculous life-saving benefits to humankind. But the tropical biosphere is also home to dinosaurs like a new breed of Tyrannosaurus rex, the horned Diabloceratops, the winged Anurognathus, the dog-sized Aquilops, and the semi-aquatic Spinosaurus, which can be seen lurking in the waters surrounding the island in the new Jurassic World Rebirth trailer below.
The Spinosaurus was the star dinosaur of 2001’s Jurassic Park III, where paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) encountered the predatory, T-rex neck-snapping Spinosaurus amid a rescue mission on Isla Sorna, the sister island of Isla Nublar also known as Site B. In that film, the Spinosaurus was the biggest threat on land.
Rebirth brings the Spino back for an ocean-set sequence as the webbed-footed wonders swarm a boat ferrying skilled covert operations expert Zora Bennett (Johansson), her team leader Duncan Kincaid (Ali), paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Bailey), and the Delgados, a shipwrecked civilian family, to the island.
“What the hell are those?” Bennett asks in the footage as Bobby (Ed Skrein) opens fire on the Spinos before being snatched into the jaws of the aquatic predator.
The original Spinosaurus later reappeared on Mantah Corp Island in the Netflix animated series Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, but the species hasn’t been featured on the big screen since Jurassic Park III in 2001. (Spinosaurus skeletons made “cameos” in 2015’s Jurassic World and 2018’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.)
In The Making of Jurassic Park III, the film’s technical advisor and paleontology consultant Jack Horner described Spinosaurus as “the biggest meat-eating dinosaur that ever lived.”
“The largest example was about 56 feet. The largest of the T-rexes is about 45, 46 feet. There was no doubt that the Spinosaurus was a predator,” Jurassic Park III director Joe Johnston added. “The Spinosaurus looks a lot different than the T-rex. It’s got about a five-foot long jaw, a very crocodile-looking snout. The Spinosaurus also has a sail on his back that stands about seven feet tall.”
24 years later, that “sail” will be put to use when the Spinosaurus returns in Jurassic World Rebirth, only in theaters July 2. Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) is directing from a script penned by David Koepp (1993’s Jurassic Park, 1997’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park).
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