According to Screen Rant, we will be getting a sequel to The Departed and it may arrive sooner than we think. A Boston based website was able to grab a few quotes and managed to find out that the film might be hitting theatres in 2012. They go onto say that Scorsese has also signed off on the sequel. Here is a quote from Mark Wahlberg:

“They told me they wanted to try to do it and I said, ‘Well, I enjoyed playing the character.’ I mean, this guy [Dignam] doesn’t give a s**t about anything. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks. He just does what he does, he does it the way he wants to do it. And I love that. I don’t think that people who are borderline sane have to be bad. It was just the way I was acting throughout the movie, and then you realize that he’s one of the only stand-up guys. He avenges the death of someone he doesn’t even like just because it’s the right thing to do. There’s a dignity to him.”

Of course none of this has been confirmed by the studios but it seems like reliable information. One issue that Screen Rant pointed out was that a lot of the main characters died in the first one, they also pointed out that they were skeptical of Scorsese being on board since he has never made a sequel to any of his films. Wahlberg also mentions Robert De Niro may play a corrupt State House politician.”

Without Scorsese the film wouldn’t be half as good and the director has made no public statements about being on board with the sequel. The only people so far that are really adamant about doing it are Mark Wahlberg and writer William Monahan.

Either way this is good news, the first film was great and a sequel would be very welcome, in my eyes at least. If Scorsese doesn’t sign on things can get tricky but I think the film will be in good enough hands with Monahan and Wahlberg.

What do you think about this? Do you want to see The Departed 2?