Released last year, Monsters was the little science fiction that could; sporting a miniscule budget, it became somewhat of a critical darling to do so much with very little. It also put British director Gareth Edwards on the map, so much so that Legendary Pictures has tasked him with the next attempt at an American Godzilla. A year later, Vertigo Films has announced that there will be a Monsters 2…but this time, Edwards will not be behind the camera.
Screen Daily has reported that the studio has given the directing reigns of Monsters 2 to Brent Bonacorso and Jesse Atlas, two up-and-coming filmmakers who will be making their feature debut with this. Edwards, as well as Scoot McNairy who starred in the original, will be given executive producer credit. The sequel will follow a teacher who lives in a walled city heading into the infected zone to find his brother, who used to be a part of the military before going crazy (the article compares him to Col. Kurtz from Apocalypse Now).
Although Monsters was produced with a tiny budget, the sequel will not have to deal with the same restraints. Don’t expect a $100 million dollar blockbuster, instead keeping it somewhere under $5 million, but that’s still quite more than what Edwards had to work with. With this expanded budget Allan Niblo, one of Vertigo’s producers, has promised there will be more monsters. I wanted more of the monsters after watching the first one so if it can deliver in this area more, that would be excellent.
And for those of you afraid that Edwards is merely sticking his name on the sequel for shits and giggles, Niblo also mentioned that the director loves the vision of the two directors taking over. Whether that’s completely true or not, at least it gives us a stamp of approval and the hope that this will not just be a soulless sequel made only for money. Then again considering that Monsters didn’t really rake in the dough, that would have been a stupid route to take in the first place.
Despite having no cast just yet, Vertigo has promised Monsters 2 for a late 2012 release. That’s a lot of time to wrangle up a cast, a good script, and to make sure it isn’t a waste of time. I’m going to hold out hope that it will actually be one of the rare sequels that is worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as its original rather than, say, The Matrix Reloaded, where it tries to do too much and falls flat on its face. Fingers crossed, everyone.
Are you on board for a Monsters 2? If not, explain yourself and let’s discuss it over some internet coffee.