‘Jurassic Park 4′ Has a Release Date (but No Director)
With Steven Spielberg's 'Robopocalypse' put on temporary hold, perhaps Universal saw a hole in the 2014 schedule, or perhaps they're just ready to make more dinosaur movies. We say that because -- even though there's no director attached -- Universal has announced that 'Jurassic Park 4' will be hitting theaters June 13, 2014.
This comes from The Hollywood Reporter's Boris Kit, and his twitter feed, and he made the same logic jump that we did that it's possible that Spielberg (who is currently only attached as producer) now has the wiggle room to jump in as director if he saw fit. 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' scripters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver recently turned in a new draft, which could be why Universal's so excited, or perhaps they just need a big summer event film for 2014.
'Jurassic Park 4' has been in development in one way or another for about ten years, with writers like John Sayles (who wrote a legendary "Dinosaurs as mercs/Dinos on a mission" draft of the film) and William Monaghan taking a shot at it since 'Jurassic Park III' hit theaters in 2001. It seems like the Jaffa and Silver draft was what Universal wanted in a new sequel, and with the timeline of this production we should start hearing about a director and cast shortly.