Jurassic World 2 - Fast facts:
- Jurassic World 2 release date? June 7, 2018 (UK)/June 22, 2018 (US)
- Who is the Director? JA Bayona
- Cast - who is starring? Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jeff Goldblum, BD Wong, Geraldine Chapman
- Writers - who is doing the script? Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly
A sequel to Jurassic World is coming in summer 2018. After helming the first dino reboot, Colin Trevorrow is focussing on script duties this time around, with JA Bayona (The Orphanage, A Monster Calls) instead selected to direct the sequel. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard both return – as does one of the most popular faces from the original Jurassic Park. You might say this one will ‘fly’ at the box office…
Read more: Jurassic World review
This feature is updated with all the latest Jurassic World 2 news, to keep checking back and bookmark this page so you never miss a thing.
Jurassic World 2 release date - when is it coming out?
Here’s JW 2’s first diplodocus-sized surprise: it’s bound for the home of the jurassic coast before anywhere else. Jurassic World 2 arrives in the UK on June 7, 2018, two weeks before the rest of the planet.
Filming for Jurassic World got underway in Slough, UK in February 2017, with Pinewood Studios set to host the majority of the film. Hawaii is confirmed as another primary filming location, and Wales’ Brecon Beacons are also earmarked for scenes. Other known locations – all in England – are East Berkshire College, Hawley Common, and Hartland Park in Fleet.
Read more: Star Wars: The Last Jedi latest news
The sequel to #JurassicWorld will be in UK cinemas ahead of its release in the US. pic.twitter.com/mUo7zx5MgNAugust 13, 2015
Jurassic World 2 plot - what will happen?
First plot twist: there’s a teenage girl in Jurassic World 2. This much is clear from the film’s first teaser image (above). And if you were paying attention, you surely noted that there were no teenage girls playing key roles in Jurassic World 1. She’s most likely Lucy, a character who was auditioned for in October 2016. The casting call sought an actress “sensitive and clever, capable of handling long and complex scenes. Lucy must be able to handle a range of emotions from tender moments with her father, to anxiety, bravery, and shock.” Who that father is remains open to speculation, but the best theory I’ve read relates her to Dr Henry Wu.
Colin Trevorrow, who directed the first Jurassic World, says the story of this sequel centres upon a Dr Alan Grant quote from original Jurassic Park: "Dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution, have suddenly been thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea of what to expect?"
Trevorrow has hinted that there will also be an a dinosaur cruelty angle at play here. "The dinosaurs will be a parable of the treatment animals receive today: the abuse, medical experimentation, pets, having wild animals in zoos like prisons, the use the military has made of them, animals as weapons," he told El Mundo. That would tally with a theme touched upon in the first film, where baddy Vic Hoskins constantly pushed to utilise dinos as weapons for conflict. He’s very much dead, but that ideology most definitely isn’t.
Read more: Game of Thrones Season 7 latest news
Jurassic World 2 cast - who will star in it?
Jeff Goldblum is back! According to The Hollywood Reporter, Goldblum will be reprising the role of Dr Ian Malcolm, a fan favourite from the original Jurassic Park and sequel The Lost World. He was briefly referenced in Jurassic World via his book, God Creates Dinosaurs, and this time you’ll be seeing him in the flesh. That’s my Odeon tickets pre-ordered regardless of future announcements.
As for the cast of the first film, Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard were confirmed for the sequel as far back as July 2015, and BD Wong returns as bit-part-character-turned-evil-supremo Dr Henry Wu. Odds on him finally getting munched this time around: short.
The first new character confirmed is Benjamin Lockwood, who used to work with John Hammond – the brains behind the original Jurassic Park. He’s being played by James Cromwell, according to the man himself. “[As Benjamin] I’m trying to deal with the blowback of what we’ve done,” is all he’ll reveal on the character for now. Other reported new faces include Ted Levine, Justice Smith and Daniella Pineda, but at present there’s no information on their roles.
Geraldine Chapman, a favourite of director JA Bayona, was confirmed by the boss himself on Twitter:
Look who's joining the Jurassic adventure. #geraldinechaplin pic.twitter.com/deKWIbaImXMarch 5, 2017
Rafe Spall and Toby Jones have also been strongly linked to Jurassic World 2 – as characters named Mills and Wheaton respectively – but official confirmation of the pair hasn’t been forthcoming as yet.
Read more: Avengers Infinity War latest news
Jurassic World 2 trailer - where can you watch it?
Type ‘Jurassic World 2 trailer’ into YouTube’s search facility and you’ll find many fakes that give you a laugh, but no sign of the real one – largely because filming is only just underway. Instead expect those first beautiful glimpses of Pratt and Goldblum sharing wisecracks to emerge at the back end of 2017, with teasers then dropped regularly between New Year 2018 and the flick’s June release.
Read more: Thor: Ragnarok latest news
Jurassic World 2 locations - where is it set?
According to hints from Colin Trevorrow, Jurassic World 2 isn’t another island-based adventure – he says using that setting again would “get old fast”. Director JA Bayona has expanded upon that, saying we’ll be taken to “a place we’ve never seen before”.
GR+’s prediction, as discussed back in March, is a dinosaur adventure set on the mainland of the United States. If you recall, the end of The Lost World saw a T-Rex escape from a boat and run amok in Manhattan, and the first teaser image released for the film looks a lot like NYC’s American Natural History Museum. Bayona has admitted to immersing himself in the Michael Crichton novels before filming got underway – perhaps because of this link between earlier Jurassic Park films and his new one?
The only issue with this theory is that – as I’ll get too shortly – other than Hawaii, almost all known filming locations are in the UK. And while Hollywood can work all sorts of magic, getting the Brecon Beacons to double for Central Park would make for quite the extreme post-production challenge.
Read more: The best upcoming movies of 2017
Jurassic World 2 director - who is JA Bayona?
Colin Trevorrow, director of the first Jurassic World, is now on production and scriptwriter duties. His successor, JA Bayona, has been hand-selected for a very specific reason. "[Jurassic World 2] will be more suspenseful and scary,” Trevorrow told Jurassic Outpost. “It’s just the way it's designed; it's the way the story plays out. I knew I wanted Bayona to direct it long before anyone ever heard that was a possibility, so the whole thing was just built around his skill set.”
Between The Orphanage, The Impossible, A Monster Calls and various Spanish music videos, Bayona has proven adept at handling a wide range of genres from horror to fantasy drama – making it tough to pin down a specific direction for JW2. A sensible conclusion appears to be a family film with a few seriously shocking moments. Think along the lines of Jaws’ human-head-in-abandoned-boat jump scare.
Read more: The best TV shows on Netflix
Jurassic World 2 poster - what can we expect?
Official artwork for Jurassic World 2 is currently stashed in the same place as the film’s first trailer: somewhere inside Colin Trevorrow’s head. (Where one can only imagine the most spectacular dinosaur disco, with ankylosaurus manning the decks and kosmoceratops serving hors d’oeuvres.) Inspect a sneaky tease. The first Jurassic World poster was released in October 2014, eight months before its theatrical release – so it's safe to assume that you'll be able to have the new film's logo on your wall before Christmas, should you so please.
Read more: Westworld Season 2 latest news
Jurassic World 2’s name - is that the final name?
Yes, you read that correctly. While the world and his compsognathus has christened the new film Jurassic World 2 – hardly a surprise, nor an arrestable offence – IMDb refuses to name it anything other than Untitled Jurassic World Sequel, and the casting call for Lucy uses the working title Ancient Futures. Whatever its final title, rest easy: we’re still at least three films away from Jurassic Galaxy, and – hopefully – many decades from Michael Bay Jr Jr delivering Jurassic Universe.
Read more: Spider-Man: Homecoming latest news
Related Jurassic World 2 news
Here's Jeff Goldblum being very Jeff Goldblum about returning in Jurassic World 2
Jeff Goldblum's Jurassic World 2 casting proves that life *always* finds a way
3 secrets hidden in plain sight in the first Jurassic World 2 photo
Jurassic World 2 is going to make you feel terrible for those poor dinosaurs
Jurassic World 2 has finally found its director: J.A. Bayona
Jeff Goldblum's answer to appearing in Jurassic World 2 is peak 'blum: "I'm an open-faced sandwich"
Cities will be overrun by open source dinosaurs in Jurassic World 2