Beauty And The Beast screenwriter Evan Spiliotopoulos has signed on to pen the sequel to action-fantasy film, Bright, for Netflix. Director David Ayer is returning to helm the follow-up to the first film which followed Will Smith and Joel Edgarton as two odd couple police men working the streets of an alternate reality Los Angeles where warring magical creatures walk the streets.
This is familiar territory for Spiliotopoulos, who penned a number of direct-to-video Disney animations before getting his big break by writing the screenplays for blockbuster fantasy films Beauty And The Beast and The Huntsman: Winter’s War.
Max Landis (American Ultra) wrote the script for the first film, and reportedly got a hefty paycheck for the initial spec script after igniting a bidding war, and was originally slated to return for the sequel, but he left the project after reported creative differences arose between he and Ayer.
Bright is arguably Netflix’s most infamous film; the streaming giant’s biggest movie and first attempt at a major blockbuster which was then met with critical disdain upon release. The movie cost $90 million and with the poor critical reception, you would think Netflix would want to move onto something better and make people forget about such a poor film.
However, although Netflix doesn’t release the viewing numbers of their customers, Bright reportedly drew in eleven million viewers, which they deemed a massive success and quickly greenlit a sequel. There’s potential in the ideas within the franchise (which is now what this is), so eternal optimists might point to that as to why a sequel could be a success with a bit of a creative tweak.
There’s no word yet on when Bright 2 is expected to begin production, nor when Netflix expects it to hit their service. It will also be interesting to see whether the budget rises significantly considering the amount of money the company is reportedly spending on new content over the next few years (it’s comfortably in the billions).
#Peace.Love.Bright
