Sequel Bits: ‘Game Night 2’, ‘Cloverfield’, ‘The Purge’, ‘Wreck-It-Ralph 2’, ‘Frozen 2’, ‘Evil Dead 4’ and More

In this edition of Sequel Bits:

• Game Night writer already has sequel ideas
• Gugu Mbatha-Raw didn’t know The Cloverfield Paradox was going to drop on Netflix
• J.J. Abrams explains the Cloverfield Paradox ending
• The Purge TV series casts its leads
• A Planet of the Apes VR game gets a trailer
• Wreck-It-Ralph 2 directors discuss their sequel
• Frozen 2 director dances around the issue of Elsa having a girlfriend
• Bruce Campbell says another Evil Dead movie is possible
• Bruce Willis wakes up from a nap to remind us Die Hard 6 is still happening
• World War Z 2 filming pushed back so Brad Pitt can film Quentin Tarantino‘s new movie

Game Night has been receiving rave reviews (I’m as shocked as you are), and the film has done fairly steady box office. No one has officially said the words “Game Night 2” yet, but if that should happen, the film’s screenwriter is already thinking of the possibilities.

Speaking with THR, writer Mark Perez said, “It would be great to have sequels. Super titles like Game Night or specific titles like that feel genetically built to have sequels…It’s like players who are playing in the playoffs and aren’t thinking about the Super Bowl, but they are really thinking about the Super Bowl. Of course I’d love for there to be many sequels, and getting these characters to do other crazy things would be unbelievable…But for right now I think it’s a really cool, interesting movie, and there are so many fewer comedies these days, and I always cheer for comedy, and I love it so much that I hope people see it.” I have yet to see Game Night, so I don’t know what a sequel to the film would even be. I’m assuming it would involve games and/or the night, though.

 

Paramount and Netflix surprised everyone by dropping The Cloverfield Paradox onto Netflix following the Super Bowl. Almost no one had any idea that was happening – including the film’s star. Speaking with Indiewire, Gugu Mbatha-Raw said: “When we all discovered that the movie was going to be dropped after the game, I was as surprised as anyone. It was a shock and a surprise and it was new information to us all.” Movie stars: they’re just like us!

Honestly, at this point I’d like to just forget all about The Cloverfield Paradox, but here’s even more news about the film. In an interview with The Empire Film Podcast (via IGN), director Julius Onah and producer J.J. Abrams spilled the beans on the story behind the film’s ending, which (SPOILER ALERT!!) seems to tie the sequel directly into the original Cloverfield. While the monster that pops up in the final seconds of Paradox looks a heck of a lot like the original Cloverfield monster, Onah confirms that the films take place in separate timelines:

“Now that we’ve had these multiple timelines have been opened and things are happening dimensionally, there’s many different ways for these things to play out. So there was a real fine connection to make with things dropping into the ocean that you see in the movie when they first realize they’ve landed in this other dimension. There’s still more possibilities that will come with more strands of the story.”

Abrams, meanwhile, did some damage control to talk about just what in the heck the Cloverfield brand is:

“On the one hand you can say ‘well then anything anywhere could be a Cloverfield movie,’ but the intention has never been to take a movie and then slap Cloverfield on it. The idea was to say Cloverfield is a kind of umbrella, you know, under which all of sorts of genres and thrill rides can take place.”

The Purge franchise is becoming a TV series for Syfy, and it’s just cast its lead actors. Per Deadline, Gabriel Chavarria and Jessica Garza will star in the series. The show will use the film’s premise of one night of lawlessness in America.

Here’s the plot description from the report:

“Chavarria will play Miguel, a US Marine with a hard edge and a noble mission. After receiving a cryptic letter from his little sister, Penelope (Garzia), he returns to town on Purge Night – prepared to face the senseless violence in the streets alone in order to protect what he loves most – his family.” Garza’s character “belongs to a Purge-worshipping cult. Having pledged herself to be sacrificed at the behest of their charismatic leader, Penelope’s faith is tested when she is exposed to the ghastly realities of the Purge.”

Those damn dirty apes are back…in VR form. Crisis on the Planet of the Apes VR gives you an opportunity to see the world through the eyes of a genetically altered ape shooting a machine gun. What more could you ask for? The virtual reality game will be available April 3, 2018 on PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, and HTC Vive. Here’s a synopsis:

Five years since its outbreak, the Simian Flu has wiped out half of humanity and left other primates…evolved. Now at the crossroads of two species’ destinies, you are an ape with advanced intelligence, captured and held prisoner in a heavily guarded scientific facility as mankind desperately searches for a cure. Your mission: confront human aggression as you climb, jump and shoot through the chaos of an apocalyptic world to escape with your fellow apes and return home to Caesar.

The Ralph Breaks The Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2 trailer dropped yesterday, and now directors Rich Moore and Phil Johnston are opening up about their animated sequel. Speaking with Inside The Magic, Moore and Johnston go into great detail about a lot of elements of the film, including the appearance of several Disney princesses. Johnston explains the origins of that here:

“The actual germ of the idea came from, ‘What if they went to the Disney Infinity website?’ which was not there anymore, and what if the characters that were in Infinity were just still hanging out there? And then from that idea, we went, ‘No, it would be better if it’s an existing site.’ So these ideas sort of grow on top of each other and build and build and build.”

Head on over to Inside The Magic to read more, but here’s another tidbit: the filmmakers confirm the bunny that (allegedly) explodes at the end of the trailer is fine, so don’t fret: “He’s in one piece,” says Moore. “He’s regenerated.” Phew.

Will Elsa have a girlfriend in Frozen 2? I’m just going to go ahead and assume the answer is “no” (although I’d love to be proven wrong!). Speaking with The Huffington Post, Frozen 2 director Jennifer Lee addressed the issue without really giving a concrete answer:

“I love everything people are saying [and] people are thinking about with our film ? that it’s creating dialogue, that Elsa is this wonderful character that speaks to so many people. It means the world to us that we’re part of these conversations. Where we’re going with it, we have tons of conversations about it, and we’re really conscientious about these things. For me … Elsa’s every day telling me where she needs to go, and she’ll continue to tell us. I always write from character-out, and where Elsa is and what Elsa’s doing in her life, she’s telling me every day. We’ll see where we go.”

Ash vs. Evil Dead is entering its third season, continuing the adventures of Bruce Campbell‘s chainsaw-wielding doofus Ash. While doing the interview rounds for the new season, Campbell dropped an interesting piece of info to EW. According to the actor, there’s always a chance we could see an Evil Dead 4 – if Ash vs. Evil Dead gets cancelled. Campbell said:

“We won’t know [if we’ve been renewed] till the middle of March. We’re in the horrible television limbo right now. If they take us off the air, we can think about another movie. And if they don’t, we can just keep plugging away.”

I suppose this news is good or bad depending on how you feel about Ash vs. Evil Dead. If you want more of the series, then you obviously don’t want it to be cancelled. If you’d prefer another Evil Dead film, however, you might be hoping Starz gives it the axe. What a conundrum!

Sleepy boy Bruce Willis woke up from one of his ten-year naps to provide us with an update on Die Hard 6, which is still happening for some reason. Appearing on  The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to promote his latest movie Death Wish, Willis offered a mind-blowing update on the latest Die Hard:

“I’m about to wing out to California to start to see what the script looks like. So yeah, I think so, yeah.”

Wow! The big story here really is that Bruce Willis refers to flying as “winging out.” Anyway, Die Hard 6 was originally pitched as both a sequel and a prequel, because sure, why not.

Brad Pitt was just announced as the latest cast member of Quentin Tarantino’s Manson Family movie, which now goes by the title Once Upon a Time In Hollywood. That’s good news for Tarantino, and bad news for anyone hoping we’d see World War Z 2 sooner rather than later. Variety says World War Z 2, which is still apparently being directed by David Fincher, has been pushed to a “fall shoot”, indicating the film won’t hit theaters now until 2020. For those keeping track, there was once a time when World War Z 2 was going to hit theaters in 2017.

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