Sequel Bits: ‘Escape Plan 2,’ ‘World War Z 2,’ ‘Rush Hour 4,’ And ‘How To Train Your Dragon 3’
In this edition of sequel bits:
Principal photography is underway onSteven C. Miller’sEscape Plansequel, which starsSylvester Stallone, notArnold Schwarzenegger. Stallone is teaming up withDave Bautistathis time around for the prison break film, whichDeadlinelearned will co-starWes Chatham. Chatham had a role inThe Hunger Games: Mocking Jay – Part I, and he’s currently starring in Syfy’sThe Expanse, a show I always hear nothing but praise for these days.
Chatham’s casting isn’t the only news on theEscape Plansequel front. Stallone took toInstagramto reveal the sequel’s title,Escape Plan: Hades,. He also tossed out the idea of another sequel (viaBirth.Movies.Death).
On location filming EXCAPE PLAN 2 HADES WITH Dave Bautista and Jesse Metcalfe … The scene was interesting challenge and turned out great … the film it really has a lot of energy and action Very glad to be part of it. I got a feeling they may be wanting to do a third one pretty soon… Count me in.@davebautista #Lions gate #EscapePlan2
A post shared by Sly Stallone (@officialslystallone) onMar 22, 2017 at 2:06pm PDT
We last heard David Fincher isstill interestedinWorld War Z 2. The sequel’s producer and the CEO of Skydance Media, David Ellison, recently toldColliderhe has “hope” he’ll direct it:
There’s a script that we’re incredibly happy with, and it’s just getting a couple of key deals closed… We hope [Fincher] makes the movie
Fincher reportedly wants to make a film not as costly as the loose adaptation ofMax Brooks' book, which went over-budget and had extensive reshoots. It doesn’t sound likeThe Social Networkdirector wants to make a movie that’s just another globetrotting zombie adventure for Gerry Lane (Pitt); he apparently wants to make a movie about a family simply trying to survive the new zombie world.
Almost a decade after the first and most enjoyableTransformerslive-action film came out, Michael Bay is still blowing things up real good in the Hasbro universe. The next Bay-directedTransformerssequel,Transformers: The Last Knight, opens in theaters this June – a year before the Bumblebee movie is out and two years beforeTransformers 6arrives.
As a reminder Bay’s box-office juggernaut is on its way, the director posted a series of motion posters for the film onTwitter. Here’s the one for Bumblebee:
Bumblebee’s always got your back.#Transformerspic.twitter.com/emzVs9jbbd
— Michael Bay (@michaelbay)June 14, 2025
Unrelated toTransformers: The Last Night, but Bay and Fincher once worked in offices across from each other. “I always called his The Doom and Gloom Office because it was always dark,” Bay toldGQ.
A few short weeks before Bay’s next action opus comes out,Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man Tell No Taleshits theaters on May 26. While the international poster was sensory overload, the German poster forJoachim RønninandEspen Sandberg’s adventure film is much simpler and an improvement, although, at the end of the day, it’s still two floating heads:
Soon afterPirates 5comes out, I wouldn’t mind seeing Javier Bardem play the hero in a popcorn movie. He’s played so many villains already!
The greatJudy Greer(The Descendants) doesn’t have a substantial role inJurassic World. She played Karen, the mother of Gray and Zach, who aren’t confirmed to return in any capacity forJ.A. Bayona’s sequel. Since they’re absent, Greer’s involvement seems very unlikely. When the actress, who’s in post-production on herdirectorial debut, was asked byCinemablendwhether she’s in the untitledJurassic Worldsequel, she replied: “Not as far as I know yet.”
One actor we do know is returning for a big sequel is Jay Baruchel, who’s voicing Hiccup again forDean DeBlois’How to Train Your Dragon 3. The director behind this year’s highly-anticipatedGoon: The Last of the Enforcershas already done a few recording sessions for the sequel. Baruchel couldn’t tellJoblotoo much about the sequel, but he doesn’t think anyone will be disappointed by what he sees as the strongest of the three stories:
I’m not allowed to say anything. This is what I’ll say, and for whatever it’s worth I do swear that this is not just promo nonsense, it’s by far, the strongest of the stories (of the three). It’s the movie that the series requires and deserves and it’s the rightful third chapter or third act, I should say. I don’t think anybody will be disappointed.
The sequel comes out June 27, 2025. It was originally scheduled to come outlast summerbefore it got pushed to 2017, and then 2018, before finally landing on a date around the five-year anniversary mark ofHow to Train Your Dragon 2.
DirectorBrett Ratneris not a fan of Rotten Tomatoes. Not because most of his movies have low scores on the site, but partially for reducing movies down to a number. He recently toldEntertainment Weeklyit’s “the worst thing that we have in today’s movie culture is Rotten Tomatoes,” for both fair and unfair reasons.
Ratner’s thoughts, and Rotten Tomatoes' response, are worth reading, but he also shared that he thinksRush Hour 4is still a real possibility. “I think it will happen; we’re talking to writers,” he said. “We could call it Grumpy Old Rush Hour.” Now and then Chan, Ratner, and Tucker express interest in returning to theRush Hourfranchise, which got off to a good start but ended things poorly withRush Hour 3, which, as you probably all recall, co-starred filmmakerRoman Polanski.
