Colin Trevorrow

OK, it’s not exactly the most surprising news, but it does offer another shred of optimism for those who were maybe a teensy bit disappointed with Jurassic World (that might be an understatement); and if you weren’t, you can just add this to your list of reasons to be excited for J.A. Bayona’s sequel. As confirmed by producer Colin Trevorrow, the one and only T-Rex will return when the park — or something like it — re-opens in Jurassic World 2, which hits theaters in 2018.

As the director of the poorly-reviewed but highly lucrative Jurassic World and slated helmer for Star Wars: Episode IX, Colin Trevorrow has become Hollywood’s new go-to guy for massive franchises. But when he’s not somehow making dinosaurs boring or giving Star Wars fans nervous breakdowns, Trevorrow likes to reconnect with his roots in the indie world, where he first got his start as the man behind the middling sci-fi/romcom Safety Not Guaranteed. As a little breather between studio tentpoles, Trevorrow’s going back to basics with another small-scale, small-town adventure. And this time, he’s got an adorable secret weapon.

Without knowing the scope of Carrie Fisher’s role in the upcoming Star Wars sequels, it’s difficult to speculate about how Lucasfilm might address her recent passing. But a new report has uncovered key details (and potential spoilers) regarding General Leia’s narrative arc in Episodes VIII and IX, and reveals that Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy is planning to meet with director Colin Trevorrow next week to contemplate their options for Leia’s role in the forthcoming sequels.

After Colin Trevorrow finished work on Jurassic World and before he starts on Star Wars: Episode IX, he took on a smaller-scale project called The Book of Henry. The plot is pretty mysterious: it involves a single mother taking care of her son who just so happens to be a supergenius. A ton of talent is attached to the picture, including Naomi Watts, Room’s Jacob Tremblay, Lee Pace, Sarah Silverman, Breaking Bad’s Dean Norris, and Sia’s dancing doppelganger Maddie Ziegler. If that’s not enough to catch your interest, Michael Giacchino will be composing the score. The first poster for the film was released today, and it looks certifiably Da Vincian.

With TV becoming ever more cinematic, movies feel the need to do what they can to make going to the theater an experience that can’t be gotten anywhere else. That’s why many directors have been pushing for the advent of larger film stock that can be converted to formats like IMAX, to give blockbusters the all-encompassing scope they require for their grandiose stories. The Star Wars saga is the next series to get the treatment, as director Colin Trevorrow says he’s going to shoot Episode IX on 65mm film.

The universe that Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg created with 1993’s Jurassic Park is a world ripe with all kinds of possibilities. What would a world in which the resurrection of extinct species is a reality be like? Can an ostensibly foolproof system of controlling these creatures and making sure they don’t escape their enclosures really work? (No.) Does life, uh, find a way? (Yes.) This summer’s Jurassic World chose to tell a simpler, more action-y tale than its predecessors, but from what Colin Trevorrow has said about its sequel, Jurassic World 2 will take a more nuanced approach to the possibilities of genetically resurrected dinosaurs.

For a brief moment, Ava DuVernay was attached to direct Intelligent Life for Amblin with Lupita Nyong’o on board to star, but when the former departed the project to focus on Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time, the latter also jumped ship — leaving the film in flux. But the sci-fi project has found new life with Jay Roach, who has signed on rewrite and potentially direct Intelligent Life based on Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly’s screenplay.

One of the biggest complaints (of which there were many) about Jurassic World was the over-abundance of CGI — it’s a simple problem that the upcoming sequel could address quite easily, and according to Colin Trevorrow, it’s definitely a concern shared by Jurassic World 2 director Juan Antonio Bayona. In a new interview, Trevorrow not only promises more animatronic dinosaurs, but more suspense and scares. Oh, and if you were hoping for some weaponized dinos (looking at you, Vincent D’Onofrio), you can stop holding your breath.

About a year ago, Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow went on a Jurassic Park-themed podcast and talked about Universal’s plans to make his film the first in a trilogy of movies about dinosaur-induced mayhem. And while nothing really seemed to indicate that the creative team had switched gears since then, today we did finally get confirmation that a Jurassic World trilogy is still the plan going forward.

Despite lukewarm reviews, Jurassic World made more than enough bank at the box office to guarantee a sequel. Universal recently set a 2018 release date for Jurassic World 2, with The Impossible director Juan Antonio Bayona taking over for Colin Trevorrow, who will still work on the screenplay with co-writer Derek Connolly. With just under two years until the next installment in the franchise hits theaters, we’ve been wondering when Bayona & Co. might get to work, and according to a new rumor, it won’t be long from now.