Bright Director Offers Update On The Highly Anticipated Sequel

David Ayer’s Bright was heavily touted as Netflix’s first major foray into blockbuster territory, with the streaming giant splashing out $100 million on the fantasy action flick starring Will Smith and Joel Edgerton. While the movie didn’t find much favor with critics, it was a massive hit for Netflix, with 11 million people tuning in to watch the human/orc buddy cop adventure in the first three days it was available.

Netlflix is very careful with how it releases viewership data for most of its projects, but they seemed keen to let everyone know that Bright was a runaway success, with the numbers surely boosted by the fact that it dropped on the service in late December, just in time for the holidays when the vast majority of subscribers are more inclined to stay in and watch a movie.

As is the case with many blockbusters these days, fans seemed to like Bright a lot more than the critics did, which led to Netflix greenlighting a sequel soon after. Although, original writer Max Landis was not brought back to return. The follow-up was set to shoot last year, but was delayed due to Will Smith’s hectic filming scheduling, leading many to believe that it may not actually happen. However, in a recent interview, Ayer confirmed that Bright 2 is still in active development, but doesn’t have an official start date for production.

“Still in development. We’re working on it, so hopefully we’ll be able to mount that up soon. It’s a great opportunity for all of us to explore the world more. I think people felt like there were a lot of doorways to explore. People were like, ‘Tell us about the dragon. Tell us about this, the history’. So it’s a very rich world and I think we’re going to drill down some more.”

Ayer’s certainly hit the nail on the head here, because one of the main complaints with Bright is that it hinted at a huge amount of mythology and world-building but mostly stayed contained to the city streets. The dragon that he talks about was in the background of one shot, while there was also a centaur traffic cop that was seen once and never mentioned again. If the sequel does go ahead, the filmmaker would be wise to double-down on the fantasy aspect, especially given that The Witcher has turned out to be a smash hit on Netflix.