Nearly 19 years later, Kevin Bacon in Philadelphia to scout locations on lower Schuylkill River for 'The River Wild 2'

Philadelphia--Kevin Bacon has been wanting to make a sequel to the 1994 film "The River Wild" since filming wrapped nearly two decades ago. "I knew we had made a special movie," said Bacon, of the white water rafting flick filmed on several Oregon rivers and co-starring Meryl Streep. "It taught us all valuable life lessons about rafting and strangers and ... I don't know, all that jazz. Not to get too deep, but the river obviously symbolized the vein of life and the water represented blood. The hijacked raft was a blood clot moving through the vein of life." The Philadelphia native is in town to scout locations for the "The River Wild 2: The River Mild," which is set to begin production in late July of this year with Bacon as the director. Though Bacon's character Wade supposedly dies in the original, he makes a return and hunts down Meryl Streep's character for revenge in Philadelphia during a teacher conference where a low-speed chase is carried out somewhere along the tidal Schuylkill River. "I truly believe that a slow-moving, meandering river can offer just as much action and suspense as a torrent," added Bacon. "This is gonna be a thriller."