THIS year’s highly anticipated big-screen event, Jurassic World Dominion, takes the audience to a world where dinosaurs live and hunt alongside humans all over the world.

Reshaping the future that will determine once and for all, whether human beings are to remain the apex predators, the film is about to break the fragile balance that will reshape the future of the planet.Jurassic World Dominion is the conclusion of that unprecedented three-decade story, and it is, by design, unlike any Jurassic film that has come before. For almost three decades, the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World films, based on characters created by author Michael Crichton and following the debut of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park in 1993, have inspired awe and wonder and terror and exhilaration and unfettered joy in almost every living person who has crossed the threshold of a movie theatre in the past 29 years.

“There is a cataclysmic event in the middle of the trilogy that fundamentally changes everything,” director Colin Trevorrow says. “The dinosaurs are taken off the island and released out into the wider world. It was such an amazing opportunity to be able to explore the consequences of that. Jurassic World Dominion is about the need for us to respect the power of the natural world—if we fail, we’ll go extinct just like the dinosaurs. Not only are we finishing the story begun in 2015 in Jurassic World, but we’re finishing the story that began in 1993 with Jurassic Park. That’s a story that takes all the characters in the saga to tell.”

For the first time, the film does not take place on Isla Nublar, but entirely in our world, and, for the only time in history, the stars of both chapters of the franchise – Laura Dern as Dr. Ellie Sattler, Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm and Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant from Jurassic Park and Chris Pratt as Owen Grady and Bryce Dallas Howard as Claire Dearing from Jurassic World – are united on screen, joining BD Wong who, as Dr. Henry Wu, who appeared in 1993’s Jurassic Park and now all three Jurassic World films.

For Trevorrow, these characters are central to this film and are the reason for the franchise’s success all these years. “These characters are rich, and the drama is human and real,” Trevorrow.

The fusion of those two casts was long-planned. “We designed this trilogy to bring in characters from Jurassic Park,” Trevorrow says. “We had BD Wong in Jurassic World to assure the audience that this was the same timeline; then we brought in Ian Malcolm in Fallen Kingdom to reassure people that Malcolm is very much paying attention to what’s going on. In Dominion, the legacy cast is as equally involved as Claire and Owen. We don’t just bring them in to exist in some supervisory, parental role. We send them on a true, honest-to-God, scary-as-hell adventure.”

Jurassic World Dominion, from Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment, propels the more than $5 billion franchise into daring, uncharted territory, featuring never-seen dinosaurs, breakneck action and astonishing new visual effects that will open in cinemas across the Philippines on June 8.

(ROHN ROMULO)

DC has given us a detailed look at the uniforms Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) and Black Manta (Yahya Abdul) will be using on Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

Our own Steven Weintraub took some exclusive pictures at the Licensing Expo in Las Vegas, giving us the best look yet at the new costumes featured in the highly-anticipated sequel.

In the first Aquaman film, Arthur Curry got the golden and green uniform associated with the classic comic book version of the subaquatic hero. However, for the sequel, Arthur will be wearing a dark green uniform that looks closer to the character’s more recent comic book versions.

Besides that, the new Aquaman uniform mimics fish scales, with small circles being used to give texture to the costume. Finally, the uniform is complete with metallic gloves, boots, and shoulder armor, giving Arthur Curry some protection against his enemies.

As for Black Manta, the new uniform keeps the first film trend with a few adjustments. The villain still sports his classic fishbowl helmet. However, the helmet is all metallic this time around, without the black painting the villain used in Aquaman.

Black Manta’s uniform also looks like it is made of rubber, without the armor parts that the villain used in his previous appearance. Considering how Black Manta is expected to have an extended role in the sequel, it will be fun to see a version of the villain that pays homage to its comic counterpart’s original looks.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will take the sea hero to the titular Lost Kingdom, a part of the Atlantean Empire lost to history after the Atlanteans fell into ruin and became an underwater people. Due to a cryptic set photo posted by Wan, we speculated the Lost Kingdom is the Black City of Necrus, the Atlantean kingdom that despises surface-dwellers. Since Patrick Wilson is coming back as Ocean Master for the sequel, the city of Necrus could give the fallen king the military power he wants to wipe out humanity, a mission he failed to complete during the first movie.

Directed by James Wan, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will also see the return of Amber Heard as Mera, Dolph Lundgren as King Nereus, and Temuera Morrison as Aquaman’s father, Tom Curry. Game of Thrones’ Pilou Asbæk also joins the cast at an undisclosed part. Wan directs from a script written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, but Momoa himself co-wrote the story treatment for the sequel.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom got pushed to March 17, 2023 playdate. (source: collider.com)

(ROHN ROMULO)