'Jurassic World 2' news: J.A. Bayona to direct 'Jurassic World' sequel
"Jurassic World 2" has finally found its director in the person of Juan Antonio Bayona. He will take over from Colin Trevorrow, who directed the first movie in 2015.
For those who are not familiar with who Bayona is, the Spanish-born director made his breakthrough by directing the tsunami movie "The Impossible" where Naomi Watts earned an Oscar nomination for her heart-wrenching performance.
Universal has announced their choice on their Twitter account, saying they are pleased to have the director in. The announcement also confirmed that "Jurassic Park 2" will have a release date of June 22, 2018.
The Jurassic team has been courting Bayona to helm the movie since last year, but the director was busy directing "World War Z 2." However, he left the movie in January due to "pre-existing film commitments,' according to Paramount.
As for the Jurassic film, Colin Trevorrow, in an interview with Gamespot, said that it will be a different film compared to the other Jurassic movies. He said that the audience has given them the freedom what to do with the movie. He added, "I feel very strongly that it's not about more dinosaurs or bigger and better dinosaurs, it's about using this as a starting point for a much larger story about our relationship with these animals."
Whatever the plans are for the sequel, Bayona certainly has bigger shoes to fill in order to equal or surpass the first film which grossed more than $1.7 billion worldwide, making it the fourth highest grossing film of all time next to "Titanic," "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," and "Avatar."
Trevorrow, who was the director of "Jurassic World 1," was not able to return to the franchise because he was directing "Star Wars: Episode IX." However, he is still the one in charge of writing the script for the movie, along with Derek Connolly.