Jurassic World Rebirth's Real Ending Was Way Darker (Spoilers!)
Jurassic World Rebirth is officially in theaters, and while the dinosaurs are front and center (again), the real surprise is what didn't make it to the final cut.
Director Gareth Edwards revealed this week that the movie's original ending was much darker—until the studio stepped in and made him soften it.
In an interview with USA Today, Edwards confirmed that his original plan was to kill off Mahershala Ali's character, Duncan Kincaid, in a last-minute sacrifice scene. The movie plays it close, with Duncan leading the Distortus-Rex (yes, that's really what they named it) away from the other survivors—only to pop back up alive just before the credits roll. But that wasn't always the plan.
"My first gut feeling was to kill him, and that's what I tried to do," Edwards said. "The director's cut had him dying, and I played it to the studio, and they said, 'Is there any version where we could just see him living?'"
Yes—this time, a studio note actually changed the ending. And instead of fighting it, Edwards admitted something no one ever says out loud in Hollywood:
"It was one of those occasions where sometimes the studio knows what they're on about."
That's... rare.
Originally, the scene was shot and edited with every classic "he's definitely going to die" cue: emotional buildup, heroic self-sacrifice, the whole checklist. Edwards didn't change the setup at all—he just added the survival reveal at the end. Ironically, that made it more surprising.
"Because it's written and filmed for him to die, all the little tropes and subconscious things you would do to set that up are happening... So then, weirdly, I think it's a surprise when he lives."
There was also an alternate ending where the classic T-Rex comes in to save the day by killing the D-Rex (like we've seen a dozen times before), but even that was scrapped. The visual effects supervisor talked Edwards out of it, and for once, everyone agreed not to do another prehistoric WWE showdown.
The Numbers:
- Release date: July 2, 2025
- Runtime: 134 minutes
- Director: Gareth Edwards
- Writers: David Koepp, Michael Crichton
- Cast: Mahershala Ali, Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey
- Franchise entry: 7th film in the Jurassic saga
- Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 72%
- IMDb rating: 5.5/10
So no, Rebirth won't be remembered for reinventing the wheel, but at least it tried to zig where the last few Jurassic movies have zagged. Killing off the big-name actor might've added some weight. But in a franchise where dinosaurs routinely survive explosions, lava, and global collapse, maybe it's not so weird that the humans do too.