‘Jurassic Park’ Trailer With a Young Hammond Proves ‘Rebirth’ Was a Mistake

Universal has yet to announce a sequel to last year's Jurassic World Rebirth (2025), but the film grossed $869.1 million worldwide, so one is likely.

Recent reports suggest that director Gareth Edwards and stars Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey are in negotiations to return for a new film. Nothing is confirmed, but it's fair to say that another sequel feels inevitable.

But is it time Jurassic revisited the past rather than keep pushing forward?

For nearly three decades, the iconic film series has moved in only one direction: forward. From The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) onward, each installment has built on the chaos of the last. So far, we've yet to explore any real, meaningful prequel territory.

Even expanded media — novels, games, and animated series — tend to exist between films rather than before them. The closest we’ve come to a true prequel on the big screen was the Jurassic World Dominion (2022) prologue set in the Cretaceous Period. But that was taking things way too far into the past. Fans have long wanted something else entirely: a life story about John Hammond.

Related: Next ‘Jurassic Park' Film Likely To Bring Back Divisive ‘Fallen Kingdom' Storyline : Disney Fanatic

The John Hammond Prequel

In 2023, Jurassic Outpost shared details from an unofficial script centered on a young Hammond, which included concept art and an excerpt depicting his early “flea circus” — the same anecdote he recalls during the 1993 film’s power outage scene.

Now, a concept trailer has surfaced online imagining exactly that: a Hammond-led prequel chronicling the birth of InGen and the park itself. It recreates familiar faces like Dr. Henry Wu and Dennis Nedry, even including a “Greatest Show on Earth” banner as a nod to Spielberg’s 1993 classic. There’s just one catch — it isn’t real.

The trailer is AI-generated, complete with awkward dinosaur models and uncanny re-creations of a young Richard Attenborough. It’s unofficial and has no ties to Universal, but as rough as it looks in parts, the idea behind it resonates with many.

A New Direction for Jurassic Park

If Rebirth gets a follow-up, perhaps the boldest move wouldn’t be another isolated, island-related situation — but a step backward. A John Hammond origin story, whether as a film or streaming series, could reintroduce wonder to a franchise that’s leaned heavily on spectacle ever since that original 1993 film.

For now, it remains to be seen whether a project like this will ever happen. Until then, at least we have the upcoming first-person action-adventure video game Jurassic Park: Survival to look forward to. It might not take place before the 1993 film, but as it's set 24 hours later, that's probably the closest we'll get for now.

Would you like to see a Jurassic Park prequel about John Hammond? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!