JURASSIC WORLD 2 Returns to Hawaii to Start Filming in 2017
If you're director J.A. Bayona and you're making Jurassic World 2, I imagine you'd probably want to return to at least one of the franchise's iconic locations to give fans an update about what's happened in the wake of the previous film. According to Jurassic Outpost (via ComicBook), that appears to be the plan, because the production is slated to start shooting in February of 2017 back in Hawaii, which doubled for Isla Nublar in the films.
Jurassic World co-writer/director Colin Trevorrow, who is co-writing and producing this sequel, has said that this movie won't spend a bunch of time on the island like previous movies have because they want to change things up:
"We made [Jurassic World] with the fans very much in mind. And I’m not going to forget that, but we’ve seen a lot of ‘dinosaurs chasing people around on an island’ movies. And I think you guys and the general audience are going to be down to explore where else we can go. Owen is going to be in it, Claire is in it and neither are going to be in the same place we left them in the first movie. And even though Claire is the one who evolves the most over the trilogy, it’s her story that mirrors this changing world. Owen has shit to deal with. They’ve both opened Pandora’s Box in Jurassic World and both of them are responsible for different elements of it. And I think the way these characters are connected to these circumstances of what’s happening, it’s different than previous films. It’s not ‘let’s manufacture a way to get them somewhere’, they’re embedded into it now in a way that us storytellers are able to keep them involved without it feeling contrived."
He's also hinted at exploring the idea of open sourcing the process of dinosaur creation in a sequel, so maybe one of the sequel's characters returns to the island to get some samples or something along those lines. The production is supposedly going to film mainly in London this time around, but it appears that the island will at least be featured in some capacity, but it remains to be seen exactly how much it will factor into the new story. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard will return to reprise their roles, but not much is officially known beyond that.
Jurassic World 2 hits theaters on June 22, 2018.