Jurassic World Rebirth director read the screenplay "wanting to hate it" because he needed a break, but did a 180 after finishing it: "It was an opportunity of a lifetime"

Just when Gareth Edwards was out, dinosaurs pulled him back in.

The Jurassic World Rebirth director may have been itching for a break from filmmaking by the time the movie's script landed in his inbox, but his initial doubts about the project quickly evaporated.

"I read this screenplay wanting to hate it because I just wanted to have a break," Edwards says in the new issue of SFX magazine, which features Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on the cover and hits newsstands on Wednesday, June 18.

"I was all ready for the polite, 'No.' Like, 'Oh, it was really good, but I just want to do my own thing. Thank you for considering me.' I got to the end of the screenplay and was like, 'Oh shit, it's good. Damn it.'"

Of the script, penned by long-time Steven Spielberg collaborator and Jurassic Park co-writer David Koepp, Edwards enthused, "All the characters really popped out. It was just one of those things where it was like, I can't not do this. Also, it was all going to be done in about a year. It was just like, 'Okay, I’m not going to be able to do anything but this.' But it was an opportunity of a lifetime, to some extent. I dove in, really. We're only just coming up for air."

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Jurassic World Park Rebirth, starring Scarlet Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, and Mahershala Ali, releases in cinemas on July 2. Read more in the latest issue of SFX magazine, which will be available from Wednesday, June 18. Here's the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds cover you need to be looking out for on newsstands below...