No one expected Jurassic World to storm the box office and overtake every other movie of the summer. But the surprising ticket sales have made it the No. 1 movie of the entire year (so far), by a huge margin. The No. 2 film – Avengers: Age of Ultron – is almost $175 million behind it in box office returns. Jurassic World has reached so high, it's now the third highest grossing film of all time.
Needless to say, a sequel is coming. It's been scheduled for June of 2018, and will reunite Chris Pratt with Bryce Dallas Howard. Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow says he won't direct the next one, but he will be writing it with his World scripting partner Derek Connolly. And while it may be three years away, he's already got strong feelings about what the story will – and definitely won't – feature, which he shared with Wired.
First of all, say goodbye to Isla Nublar (and Isla Sorna, for that matter). A lone T-Rex enjoyed a brief excursion to San Francisco in the second Jurassic Park film, The Lost World, but Jurassic World 2 (or whatever it's called) may take place exclusively on the mainland.
"[It won't be] just a bunch of dinosaurs chasing people on an island," Trevorrow told Wired. "That'll get old real fast."
Have to agree there. Jurassic World worked because it was a welcome return to a long-missed, exotic location. And because it showed us a dinosaur theme park that was actually open and successful — and looked cool enough that viewers wanted to visit it themselves. But repeating that formula would be suicide for the franchise.
"I feel like the idea [is] that this isn't always going to be limited to theme parks," the director continued, "and there are applications for this science that reach far beyond entertainment."
This is hinted at right in Jurassic World — and it's not exactly subtle. Vincent D'Onofrio's character in the film, Hoskins, was obsessed with the idea of weaponizing predatory dinosaurs. It seemed to be something InGen's new leadership was interested in, as well, since Hoskins was their representative at the park.
Later, BD Wong's character, Dr. Henry Wu, warned his boss that it wouldn't be long before other companies figured out how to make dinosaurs, too.
So what happens when dinosaurs are bred by corporations with no interest in the entertainment industry? Weaponizing is an obvious option, though dinos have proven several times now that they can't be tamed or controlled.
What if eco-terrorists bred dinosaurs as a protest of extinctions caused by mankind? (Dinos aren't extinct because of humans, but radical protesters rarely care about such details.) They create dinosaurs and set them loose around the world. What if dinosaurs eventually became the dominant species on the planet again, driving mankind into post-apocalyptic conditions? That would certainly help this new film series to live up to its name.
The ideas Trevorrow is bouncing around all seem to be based on the idea of dinosaur-breeding technology basically going open source.
"It's almost like InGen is Mac, but what if PC gets their hands on it?" Trevorrow proposed. "What if there are fifteen different entities around the world who can make a dinosaur?"
What if, indeed. What other industries could make use of such technology besides weapons makers or entertainment? With the ability to manipulate and hybridize DNA, Indominus Rex could be just the beginning.
It's a captivating thought that sets the mind spinning. We'll find out what Trevorrow and his team come up with when the untitled Jurassic World sequel arrives in 2018.
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