Bright was pretty much what you expect from a movie you can sum up as “He’s a cop! He’s an orc! They kill elves with shotguns!” That said, it had some promise whenever it let Will Smith’s grumpy, snarky Ward and Joel Edgerton’s overly earnest Jakoby just play off each other, and it does mark the first time the urban fantasy genre has ever gotten any meaningful budget from Hollywood. Fortunately, Netflix will be giving it another shot, but without the screenwriter.
Netflix announced the sequel with the YouTube clip above, which includes a nod to the many, many comparisons the movie got to the ’80s SF flick Alien Nation. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix has greenlighted a sequel and Smith, Edgerton, and Ayer will all be returning. Screenwriter Max Landis, who apparently got between $3 and $4 million for the first movie, though, won’t be, which will likely be the subject of some rumor. Ayer, who usually writes his own movies, will be taking over scripting duties.
A sequel isn’t surprising. Despite getting raked over the coals by critics, the $90 million action flick was watched by 11 million people in three days, according to Nielsen, and the number was likely much, much higher as Nielsen only tracks TV viewership, not mobile devices and laptops. It’s also been Netflix’s top movie in 190 countries since it came out, which isn’t the first time critics and Netflix viewers have disagreed over the quality of the service’s original movies. But hopefully, Ayer lets Smith and Edgerton do what they do best.
(via The Hollywood Reporter)
