J.A. Bayona on ‘Jurassic World 2’; “This one’s darker and scarier!”

J.A. Bayona‘s A Monster Calls truly knocks it out of the park in terms of its CGI achievements, perfectly honed characters and emotional sensibilities, so you can see just why the director nabbed the chance to direct the sequel to one of last year’s biggest movies, Jurassic World. Now that A Monster Calls has been screened before audiences and the filmmaker has started to put it to bed, Bayona has been speaking about his forthcoming dinosaur sequel, and it sounds like we’re getting something very different in the upcoming movie.

“It will be darker and scarier than the previous film,” Bayona said to EFE. “Obviously when you have Chris Pratt, it will also be very funny. But it will be darker. It is a second step in a trilogy, and the second step is always dark as in ‘The Empire Strikes back or the ‘Wrath of Khan,’ which are the examples you always get.”

Bayona added: “The film takes the story where it has never been before. To me, it surprised me. We are going to places where the saga has never been before, and at the same time we are paying tribute to the franchise. We will take it a step further. There are things that will happen that people are not expecting and they really are shocking.”

Shooting on the film starts in February 2017 in both London and Hawaii with Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard reprising their roles from the last movie. Bayona directs from a screenplay by Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly, with the film expected to land in cinemas on July 22nd, 2018.

Judging purely from Bayona’s comments, this film could take the ‘Jurassic’ franchise to a whole other level – but can it top the $1.6 billion that Jurassic World made at the box-office in 2015? We’ll see.