If last week belonged to Infinity War and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, then this week is all about 2018’s other big-budget blockbuster, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
Ahead of Thursday’s grand trailer reveal, Universal has been pumping out one teaser after another to drum up excitement, and today, Entertainment Weekly has gone one step further to uncover the first action shot (and some intel!) for Fallen Kingdom. And it’s suitably epic.
Starring Bryce Dallas Howard (Claire Dearing) and Justice Smith, the fiery pic sees Howard’s former park manager and her newfound cohort staring down the face of a Baryonyx (rough translation: “Heavy Claw”), a 2-ton carnivore with a taste for fish. But based on EW’s first-look exclusive, it seems the Baryonyx is not opposed to adding human flesh to the menu.
Alongside the reveal, EW also dropped the first official story details for Fallen Kingdom, confirming that Juan Antonio Bayona’s sequel takes place “several years” after Jurassic World, when Claire’s Dinosaur Protection Group is attempting the impossible: to safely transfer all dinos off Isla Nublar. There’s one problem, though…the island rests on a dormant volcano. And an eruption is long overdue.
The sequel — set several years after 2015’s billion-dollar smash Jurassic World — concerns a volcano on Isla Nublar that threatens the dinosaurs that had overrun the park at the end of the previous film. Who has the best shot at preventing the prehistoric beasts from becoming extinct (again)? That would be Chris Pratt’s dino trainer Owen Grady and Bryce Dallas Howard’s former park manager, Claire Dearing.
The preliminary logline continues as so:
With all of the wonder, adventure and thrills synonymous with one of the most popular and successful franchises in cinema history, this all-new motion-picture event sees the return of favorite characters and dinosaurs—along with new breeds more awe-inspiring and terrifying than ever before.
Flanked by an all-star cast of series regulars (see: BD Wong and the inimitable Jeff Goldblum), Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard will bear witness to a Fallen Kingdom on June 22nd, 2018. Whether Universal’s sequel can possibly top its record-breaking forebear ($1.6 billion worldwide) is another question entirely, but we’ll be able to gauge how audiences react to Bayona’s follow-up when the trailer drops this Thursday, December 7th.
