‘Life‘ was well received by critics and fans though director Daniel Espinosa has no interest in turning his film into a franchise. Usually, when it comes to horror movies that almost seems to be the point, but this movie which starred Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, and Rebecca Ferguson wouldn’t lend itself to a follow-up with the same tone or pacing. With the majority of the film set in space, it would be hard to capture the same feeling in a sequel which would take the movie into an entirely different direction.
Also, box office sales have been a bit sluggish even with the movie garnering positive reviews.
That isn’t to say it won’t happen. Just that Espinosa is against it and doesn’t sound as if he’d be a part of it:
“No, I like it to connect more to… You remember how those old Twilight Zone, the TV series, used to end? Or Night of the Living Dead? Those kind of strong twist endings. I just like those movies. Because also it’s a fun twist, I think.”
It isn’t just the type of film which he doesn’t feel should have a sequel, but Espinosa just doesn’t like to do them:
“People don’t have to contemplate it that much. Also, I don’t do sequels. I have too much ADD. I can’t do the same thing once or twice. They wanted me to do Safe House 2. No interest. They want me to do Easy Money 2. No interest.”
He wouldn’t hold it against Sony Pictures for doing a follow up though:
“They can do it. They’re allowed. They’re legally allowed to. They did Easy Money 2 and 3, so that happens but it’s not with me. For me, I just did one Easy Money. That’s my Easy Money.”
Without Espinosa you might think that a sequel could be dead but writing duo Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick not only want to do a follow-up but planned the ending with one in mind!
“We always wanted it to end in a creepy fashion that set up at least the possibility for future movies and but the script is very much a seesaw between Calvin having an advantage and the astronauts having an advantage. We always wanted them to be smart, but then a new problem present itself so when they got out of the frying pan, they found themselves in the fire. And it just so happened that the last twist was that despite all their best intentions, Calvin was once again once step ahead of them at the end of the movie. It was very intentional, and we just wanted to leave people with a real sense of goose bumps and anticipation of what might happen next.”
In fact, if they went with a sequel they would want to expand the universe in a way that James Cameron developed the Xenomorphs with ‘Aliens’:
“Just the fact that Calvin can now possibly reproduce, I think, is an interesting idea. We’ve dropped him in a situation that is teaming with life to hunt and to eat. That being the ocean, or the coast of Indonesia or Vietnam or wherever we are saying he’s landed. So that opens it up right there. But just the idea of firewalls could extend to Earth in the sense that now they’ve failed to contain Calvin to the station. The question is, how would the Earth react? Obviously, this was an international effort, so there are a lot of countries cooperating. And again, they would be trying to contain this thing from moving forward and yet there might be more Calvins to deal with. To us, that screams interesting sequel.”
It looks as if the ball is in Sony Pictures court now and if the money is on the table, I bet they’ll want to bring more of these movies to life. Bad puns aside, Espinosa likely won’t return, but with the same creative team penning the script, a follow-up could be worth watching.
Let’s be honest, how many films these days have the same directors set for sequels? Would you be interested in a follow up to ‘Life’? Do you feel that the writers have a solid idea or do you agree with the director on this one? Share your thoughts below!
Sources: Comic Book, Bloody-Disgusting
Stuart Conover is an author, blogger, and all around geek. When not busy being a father and husband he tries to spend as much time as possible immersed in comic books, science fiction, and horror! Would you like to know more? Follow him on Twitter!
