Next year can’t come soon enough! Chris Pratt dropped a few hints about 2018’s Jurassic World sequel during a recent interview with Screen Rant to promote his other new blockbuster franchise film, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
Pratt, 37, played Owen in the 2015 dinosaur-filled sci-fi adventure movie. The film, directed by Colin Trevorrow, costarred Bryce Dallas Howard and picked up 22 years after the events of Steven Spielberg‘s 1993 classic Jurassic Park. It was the fourth installment in the franchise — following 1997’s The Lost World and 2001’s Jurassic Park III — and the most successful, with a worldwide gross of more than $1.6 billion.
Plot details about the upcoming Jurassic World 2 are scarce, but both Pratt and Howard will reprise their roles as Owen and Claire. J.A. Bayona, who directed last year’s A Monster Calls, has been tapped to direct.
“Aw, man, J.A. Bayona? Do you know that filmmaker?” Pratt asked his Screen Rant interviewer during a Guardians press junket. “He’s a remarkable filmmaker. If you haven’t seen The Impossible or A Monster Calls, I mean, he’s really visually masterful. Deep emotions and suspense.”
Those elements will play a big part in the upcoming Jurassic World sequel. “I think it’s going to be a scarier version,” the Parks and Recreation alum told Screen Rant. “A little bit darker. And [it] will continue to expand and carry the story forward in a way that is really unexpected and you wouldn’t have imagined.”
Bayona hinted at some of that darkness in an interview with the U.K.’s Independent last December. “Jurassic is going to be much more scary than the previous films,” he shared. “You need to think that these movies need to appeal to a very big, wide audience, and that is very tricky. But if you think about the first Jurassic Park, that was very scary.”
He went on to recall the scene in the original when a Tyrannosaurus rex starts attacking the car where Lex and Tim Murphy are waiting. “Remember that scene with the T. rex in the car and the kid? You see that scene again and it’s quite dark and scary. Steven Spielberg was very brave doing that with kids. I think somehow you can bring that back for a blockbuster film.”
Jurassic World 2 is due to hit theaters in June 2018.
