'Jurassic World 2' Will Not Be 'Jurassic War'; More Animatronics, Suspenseful And Scary

As we start to get close to the early 2017 production start for fifth Jurassic Park film, we've begun to learn what we might expect from Jurassic World 2.

The Orphanage/The Impossible filmmaker J.A. Bayona is busy working with screenwriters Jurassic World sequel with writers Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow. The Jurassic World director also serves as a producer, and we've heard he's very involved in the new sequel. Trevorrow appeared on a recent episode of the InGeneral podcast and talked about how they are planning to involve more animatronic dinosaurs in the next film, which he also describes as "more suspenseful and scary." Hit the jump to learn the details.

Trevorrow explained on the InGeneral Podcast that the reason he "wanted Bayona to direct  it long before anyone ever heard that was a possibility." In fact, he teased in an Empire interview six months before Bayona was announced that "There are some pretty cool Spanish horror directors whose Jurassic Park movie I'd love to see as a fan." He says the story was "built around his skillset." And by that Trevorrow says, Jurassic Park 2 "will be more suspenseful and scary," as "It's just the way it's designed; it's the way the story plays out."

Trevorrow seems very involved, talking about the collaborative nature of the project he revealed that he's been in the office every day since July "working closely with J.A. [Bayona], listening to his instincts, and honing the script with Derek [Connolly] to make sure it's something that all of us believe in."

"Film has become so cutthroat and competitive; it felt like an opportunity to create a situation where two directors could really collaborate. It's rare these days, but it's something that the directors that we admire used to do all the time—one writes and produces and the other directs, and the end result is something that's unique to both of them."

The sequel will try to emulate the structure of the original Jurassic Park, having the biggest action sequence in the middle and then funnel down into an intimate and personal ending:

"That is a model that worked very well and I'm very interested in, J.A. is going to be perfect for something like that."

I think if you look at the structure of the original Steven Spielberg film, this quote is very telling about the sequel.

Trevorrow said that this film would be a lot different than the last because they are building the story from the ground up, as opposed to the last movie which was in development for over a decade before he came on board. While he had creative control over his vision, coming on that far along does bring some baggage. He admits there was also a pressure for the last film to introduce the Jurassic Park franchise to a new generation who maybe had not seen the original.

As for Jurassic World 2, Trevorrow realizes that in our sequel cynical times, "this has to prove it has a reason to exist beyond just making more money." Trevorrow believes it does and says there is more story to tell, and they are expanding on Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton's original ideas. They have even included a bit of dialogue from Crichton's original book in the sequel.

Having learned some lessons from Jurassic World, Trevorrow admits that one of the "key motivations of this movie is not that we need to make it bigger necessarily for it to be equally compelling to people." He realizes it's just as thrilling to have grounded small suspenseful moments rather than massive CG-filled action sequences. And speaking of CG, Trevorrow says "There will be animatronics for sure."

"We'll follow the same general rule as all of the films in the franchise which is the animatronic dinosaurs are best used when standing still or moving at the hips or the neck. They can't run or perform complex physical actions. And anything beyond that you go to animation. The same rules applied in Jurassic Park. I think the lack of animatronics in Jurassic World had more to do with the physicality of the Indominus, the way the animal moved. It was very fast and fluid, it ran a lot, and needed to move its arms and legs and neck and tail all at once. It wasn't a lumbering creature. And we've written some opportunities for animatronics into this movie, because it has to start at the script level—and I can definitely tell you that Bayona has the same priorities, he is all about going practical whenever possible."

He's certainly saying all the right things. One of the things I loved about Jurassic Park and Jurassic World was the concept of a dinosaur theme park. I've never been as interested in the militarized dinosaur storyline that has been teased by the series. Thankfully it doesn't sound like that is the direction they are taking the Jurassic World trilogy:

"As a writer of the thing, I'm not that interested in militarized dinosaurs, at least not in practice. I liked it in theory as the pipe dream of a lunatic. When that idea was first presented to me as part of an earlier script, it was something that the character that ended up being Owen was for, that he supported, something that he was actively doing even at the beginning. Derek [Connolly] and I, one of our first reactions was 'No if anyone's gonna militarize raptors that's what the bad guy does, he's insane.'"

He says he leans more towards the idea of proliferation and open sourcing over-militarization, so don't expect Jurassic War to be the title of the next film. Trevorrow joked that you'd need six movies to get to a place where that kind of reality would fit with our reality. Hearing him say that is very reassuring.

Giving larger clues as to what we might expect, Trevorrow says his interest in this story, is to look at our relationship with animals, how we've used and abused them, and what that relationship says about us; how we share the planet with other living things."

"We've seen the movie about don't mess with science. And we've seen the movie about how corporate greed can put the needs of a few over the needs of many. And now I'm interested in exploring further our relationship with other living creatures on this earth and how can use dinosaurs as a parable for that."

They are currently prepping the film in London and will be shooting on soundstages in the UK, but Trevorrow says it's a common misconception that people assume the movie's story will take place in the country. As for where will the sequel be set, he's not ready to reveal that. We had heard that production would return to Hawaii, and Colin confirms that while it is a primary location, it's not the main location for this sequel story.

You can listen to Colin Trevorrow's full interview on the InGeneral Podcast below. Its a great interview and even director J.A. Bayona makes a breif appearance at the end:

The yet-to-be-titled Jurassic World sequel is scheduled to hit theaters on June 22nd, 2018.