After the unexpected commercial and critical success of the Planet of the Apes prequel-reboot-thingie late last summer, Jaffa and Silver have founds themselves very much in the blockbuster business.  Silver started out big in 1992 with her debut screenplay The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, which Jaffa did uncredited help on, then they contributed to the forgotten 1997 thriller Relic.  With the rise of Caesar, they and director Rupert Wyatt brought a long-lived but exhausted series back from the brink.  They naturally worked on the first draft of the sequel Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but Fox recently handed off scripting duties on that summer 2014 follow-up to Contagion writer Scott Z. Burns.

Now they've got another high profile science fiction sequel, though, as Deadline has word of Silver and Jaffa's involvement with Jurassic Park 4.  The continuation has been frequently discussed since Jurassic Park III arrived in 2001, and various different writers have tried various different approaches, including an unused concept by William Monahan and John Sayles that involved a team of hyper-intelligent dinosaur mercenaries.  No, seriously.  There are years of talk and vague comments about a potential sequel, some of which suggests that the fourth film would be a springboard for a second trilogy.

Steven Spielberg, who directed the first and second movies from scripts by David Koepp based on the novels of the late Michael Crichton, definitely won't be returning as director, but if it does come together, he will produce alongside Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall.  Joe Johnston, the Captain America: The First Avenger and Jumanji helmer who took over the series on Jurassic Park III, has long been associated with the fourth installment, but nothing's concrete here.

Since the first three movies grossed almost $2 billion globally and remain pop-cultural touchstones, it makes perfect sense that Universal Pictures would continue investing in the established property.  The studio has set a 3D re-release of Jurassic Park for next July, a full twenty years after Spielberg's blockbuster became a summer blockbuster of unprecedented proportions and ushered in the age of CGI.  If that re-release proves that moviegoers are still keen on the series, making this move a year in advance will allow Universal to hit the ground running on a new sequel.

Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa's work on Rise of the Planet of the Apes suggests they could be well-suited to the Jurassic Park world.  Still, no matter how good their take on the the sequel, it will inevitably be lacking the single shot that made the first Jurassic Park a true global phenomenon: