While last year featured the battle of Snow White films, 2013 turned to the action genre as two terrorists-destroy-the-White-House thrillers dueled off. Released this spring, the more modestly budgeted Olympus Fallen featured Gerard Butler protecting Aaron Eckhart under the director Antoine Fuqua, while Roland Emmerich‘s White House Down put Channing Tatum under the watch of Jamie Foxx this past June. Now, in what shockingly isn’t an April Fool’s Day joke, one of them will be getting a sequel.
According to Screen Daily, after their film was the most profitable of the two, Butler, Eckhart, Angela Bassett, Radha Mitchell and Morgan Freeman will all return for a follow-up to Olympus, titled London Has Fallen. Fuqua has opted out this time around, but original writers Katrin Benedikt and Creighton Rothenberger are once again scripting and a director search is underway.
It shouldn’t come as a shock, but with FilmDistrict folding into Focus Features, the latter distributor will be handling this one, making for quite a shift in the slate they’ve built up the last decade-plus. The story, as one might expect, follows another terrorist plot, this time during the British Prime Minister’s funeral. London, after being targeted in Fast & Furious 7, Star Trek Into Darkness and more this year, will once again take a beating, with only Butler and his small crew able to save the day.
Production kicks off on location this May for a likely 2015 release.
Are you surprised at this development? Who should direct?