'Lord of the Rings' Director Peter Jackson Wants to Resurrect the Woolly Mammoth

Woolly mammoths haven’t stomped across the tundra in 4,000 years, but Sir Peter Jackson swears he can picture, and eventually film, their comeback.

On Wednesday, June 18, the 63-year-old Lord of the Rings director took the Cannes Lions Debussy stage with Ben Lamm, founder of Dallas-based Colossal Biosciences. Their topic wasn’t box-office totals or ad campaigns; it was de-extinction, specifically the push to bring back the woolly mammoth, the dodo, and the dire wolf.

“I grew up imagining all sorts of things, imagining flying cars, imagining a woolly mammoth,” Jackson said during the session. “And the phones, social media, and everything else have the danger of deadening imagination. And so I think that this is an opportunity.”

Jackson has been involved with Colossal since October 2024, when he and longtime partner Fran Walsh invested $10 million into the company. According to Lamm, 43, the Oscar-winning filmmaker regularly gives feedback, shares creative input, and even introduced him to Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin. “Peter actually wants to be involved,” the billionaire entrepreneur said. “It’s not about writing a check and then move on to the next deal. They’re true partners.”

Lamm then shifted gears to how Colossal gets its science out into the world. Speaking to the crowd, he argued that de-extinction needs Gen Z attention.

“You have to go where people are, right?” the biotech exec said, pointing to the company’s Tasmanian Tiger launch on Instagram and TikTok — channels some academics insisted were no place for science. He admitted the social push dinged his reputation with a few researchers, but shrugged it off.

“Kids aren't reading Nature and Science,” Lamm said. “We're in the attention economy. And so, if we're going to try to reach kids on something important, like climate change or loss to biodiversity, or really cool science, you’ve got to go not only where they are, but you’ve got to speak to them in their language.”

Earlier this year, Colossal made headlines with the birth of three gene-edited wolf pups — Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi — created using DNA from ancient remains and modern grey wolves. The company described them as a first step toward recreating the extinct dire wolf.

“We are an evolutionary force at this point,” Colossal’s chief science officer Beth Shapiro told TIME in April. “We are deciding what the future of these species will be.”

Next up? A woolly mammoth. The company says it’s “on track for our embryos to be ready for implantation by the end of 2026,” with a calf expected as early as 2028.