A Simple Favor director Paul Feig gives major update on sequel
Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick have returned for the follow up – and it looks like early signs are hopeful.
For the first time in his career, writer and director Paul Feig is returning to one of his films for a sequel with the upcoming A Simple Favour 2 – and it looks like fans of the original have plenty of cause to be excited about the follow-up.
Stars Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick have both returned for the new film – in addition to Andrew Rannells and Henry Golding – and speaking recently with RadioTimes.com, Feig explained that early reactions to the first cut of the movie have been excellent.
"I'm really excited about it," he said during an interview to promote his recently released Prime Video action-comedy Jackpot!
"I'm in the middle of editing right now, and we did a test screening of my first cut last week, and it played through the roof. We scored really high. So it works. It seems to work, which is nice.
"And now I'm just fine tuning, but I'm really excited about it. And basically everybody came back for it."
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Feig also explained why he was enticed back for the film, given that he normally tends to "shy away" from doing sequels.
"I just love those characters," he explained. "And I'd come up with a... I wanted to revisit them, and then I had a story idea for, like, a destination wedding in Italy. And when I was thinking about maybe we should do this, it was like, Oh, if I can marry those two ideas.
"And then Jessica Sharzer, the writer of the first movie, took it and ran with it and then from there, we kept rewriting and doing things to it."
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Feig's other credits include Bridesmaids, The Heat, Spy and Last Christmas – so now that he's had one experience of making a sequel, would he return to any of his other past efforts?
"I love doing original works," he said. "It always feels a little like putting on a wet bathing suit when you go back to something. But at the same time, with Jackpot! I think I would really have fun doing a sequel to this, I already kind of know what the story would be.
"And I think that world and that idea is so big, it could take other stories. It could take both, you know, John [Cena] and Awkwafina's stories, but also new stories and new cities and then we'd go around the world. So I think there's a real franchise potential for this of having, like, an action comedy franchise."
Jackpot! is streaming now on Prime Video and A Simple Favour is available to rent and buy on digital platforms. A release date for A Simple Favour 2 has not yet been announced.
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