Steven Spielberg Won't Direct 'Jurassic Park 4'

Jurassic Park 4" src="//cfm.yidio.com/images/article/images/_300x300_5062.jpg" style="margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 5px; float: left; width: 300px; height: 300px; " />If "Jurassic Park III" should've taught audiences anything, it's that Steven Spielberg's direction is a big reason "Jurassic Park" and to a lesser extent "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" were so great.

Now comes news that the Academy Award winner won't be helming the franchise's fourth installment due in 2013, according to Collider. Should that put a dent in confidence for the first "Jurassic Park" installment in what will have been a dozen years by the time it's scheduled to hit theaters?

"I don't want to talk about 'Jurassic Park IV' yet - it's too early - but I can tell you that I'm not directing it," Spielberg said. "I'm producing it though."

Spielberg even remained tight-lipped about confirming rumors the sequel would be a 3D project. "I can't say. I will when the time is right, but for now I can't talk about it," he said. Nor did the director of the 1993 original and 1997 first sequel confirm whether it would be a sequel or reboot, or whether something special would commemorate the 20th anniversary of "Jurassic Park" hitting theaters.

Original "Jurassic Park" producer Kathleen Kennedy commented in December not only that "Jurassic Park IV" would make a suitable 3D candidate if Spielberg were on-board, but that it will take a "great script" to get the project moving, since it was never intended as a franchise. Though the first film was obviously adapted from the late Michael Crichton's bestseller of the same name, Crichton wrote the sequel novel, "The Lost World," with Spielberg crafting a sequel film specifically in mind.

Still, Spielberg declining to direct at this point seems understandable, considering his workload.

He's already talking with director Peter Jackson about producing a "The Adventures of Tin Tin" sequel, after the first film's recent box office success. He claims that Jackson will start his motion-capture work for the second computer-animated installment sometime later this year after the New Zealand helmer finishes his work on his two-parter "The Hobbit."

His next complete directorial effort, the Abraham Lincoln biography "Lincoln" featuring Daniel Day Lewis, will hit theaters next December. Spielberg is apparently still editing. Speaking of the 2012 holiday season, that's when Spielberg is currently set to start filming his sci-fi feature "Robopocalypse."