But now we learned from Deadline that Ed Gass-Donnelly, whose credits include This Beautiful City and Small Town Murder Songs, will direct the R-rated follow-up to the 2010 PG-13 pic that grossed $70 million worldwide. Meanwhile Damien Chazelle will be penning the film with production set to begin next month in New Orleans.
As with the original, Eli Roth is producing via Arcade Pictures with Eric Newman, Marc Abraham and Tom Bliss producing via Strike Entertainment. Studiocanal will fully finance and kick off international sales at the European Film Market in Berlin next month., with a delivery expected for late 2012
According to Deadline the sequel is said to pick up three months after the original left off, but further details have yet to be revealed. Roth says he’s “very, very excited to continue to this story. Obviously with the title of the first one we had not planned on a sequel, but we love the story and subject matter and had what we feel is an inspired idea to continue it. As you can see from other recent films, fans around the world are fascinated by this subject matter, and we want to go deeper and darker this time. The first film worked great as a PG-13 psychological film, but now we want to go R-rated and show the true horror of what this subject matter offers. The biggest creative challenge will be coming up with the right title!”
Newman says, “On behalf of the producing team, we are excited to put the next installment of Nell’s story in the capable hands of Ed Gass-Donnelly. His naturalistic style and performance-based filmmaking make him the perfect choice.” Studiocanal EVP of international distribution, Harold Van Lier, adds, “We are horrified to bring to the marketplace the eagerly awaited sequel to our 2010 worldwide hit. This much bigger scale movie will unravel a profoundly scarier chapter to Nell’s battle between good and evil. God have mercy.”
Source: Deadline
