Gareth Edwards wanted Jurassic World Rebirth to return to 'horror' roots

'Jurassic World Rebirth' director Gareth Edwards wanted the new movie to return to it's "horror" roots.

The 'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story' filmmaker has swapped outer space for dinosaurs in his latest project, bringing Scarlett Johansson onboard to lead the cast in the latest addition to the franchise - and he's admitted he wanted to make the movie scarier than previous installments because the 1993 original terrified him as a child.

He told Vanity Fair magazine: "'Jurassic Park' [the original] is a horror film in the witness protection program. Most people don’t think of it like that.

"We all went to see it as kids. But I was scared s*******, to be honest, when I was at the cinema watching the T. rex attack.

"It’s one of the most well-directed scenes in cinema history, so the bar’s really high to come on board and try and do this."

Edwards added: "There’s something very primal that’s buried deep inside everybody. As mammals, we evolved [with] this fear of the bigger animal that’s going to come one day and maybe kill us or our family.

"The second we see it happening onscreen, you’re like, ‘I knew it … We had it too good for too long'."

Edwards went on to reveal he drew inspiration from some of his favourite movies - including the 'Alien' and 'Star Wars' franchises - to create a scary new dinosaur.

He explained: "When you make a creature, you get a big, massive pot and you pour in your favorite monsters from other films and books ...

"Some ['Star Wars' beast] Rancor went in there, some H.R. Giger ['Alien' designer] went in there, a little T. rex went in there …"

The original movie was based on the book by Michael Crichton and was directed by Steven Spielberg and it spawned two sequels - 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park' and 'Jurassic Park III' - which led to three 'Jurassic World' in the rebooted series.

'Jurassic World Rebirth' is the seventh movie and it has a screenplay by David Koepp - who wrote the first two movies - and the acclaimed scribe has gone back to the source material to pull inspiration from a scene in Crichton's two 'Jurassic Park' books.

The book's scene involves Alan Grant - played in the movies by Sam Neill - keeping two children safe after the dinosaurs are let loose in the theme park and attempting to get away from a Tyrannosaurus rex pursing them in a lagoon.

The movie won't feature those characters, but it will take inspiration from the famous scene.

Koepp previously told Variety: "I reread the two novels to get myself back in that mode. We did take some things from them [the two books].

"There was a sequence from the first novel that we’d always wanted in the original movie, but didn’t have room for. We were like: 'Hey, we get to use that now.'

"But just to get back in that head space 30 years later - is it still fun? And the answer is yes, it still really is. Dinosaurs are still fun."

He added of his work on the franchise: "The first two movies were two of my favorite experiences ever. And Steven [Spielberg] said: 'What about starting over? Let’s try something all new.'

"I said: 'Oh, that’s a cool idea. What if blah, blah, blah,' and then I threw an idea back. That’s it. It caught.

"You do that all the time with your friends and collaborators: throw ideas back and forth. And sometimes they catch, usually they don’t.

"There is pressure because it’s going to cost a lot of money and there are going to be big expectations and blah, blah, blah. But there was no pressure at first - just the pursuit of our ideas."