Back when found footage was Hollywood’s obsession, the format was applied to almost every imaginable genre, and the results were about as mixed as you’d expect. However, one of the standout movies from the era was Chronicle, which applied to formula to superhero cinema and launched more than one career in the process.
Looking back now at the talent involved, some of Chronicle‘s key players have fared much better than others. It was the first screenplay from Max Landis, who was pegged as the industry’s new writing wunderkind, before a string of serious accusations saw him effectively blackballed from the industry. Director Josh Trank exploded onto the scene, but settling on the Fantastic Four reboot as his next move turned out to be disastrous in hindsight.
On a more positive note, leading man DaneDeHaan has gone on to enjoy sustained success in the decade since, while Chronicle served as the breakout role for co-star Michael B. Jordan, now viewed as one of the fastest-rising talents in the business. Having pulled in $126 million at the box office on a $12 million budget, there was inevitably sequel talk in the aftermath, but it never amounted to anything serious.
However, producer John Davis revealed in a new interview that a second installment is officially in development with female lead characters this time around, and based on his comments the decision is largely driven by the bottom line.
“Chronicle was literally the best return on investment, any of my movies ever made. Chronicle we did for $12 million, and it grossed $126.64 million worldwide. Then it had a huge afterlife in syndication. It’s one of the most financially successful movies in my stable. We’re working on Chronicle 2 right now, and I think it’s going to be great. We’re working on it at Fox. It’s going to give us a chance to tell the story in a different way. We’re going to tell it from the female point of view. It will have been ten years since the event happened in Seattle, and a lot of it’s going to deal with fake news and real news and cover-ups. More interestingly, it’s the next generation getting these powers that are corruptive. These are young women just finishing college, they are empowered, and this is their journey. I mean, what a new and interesting story you can tell there.”
Presumably, Chronicle 2 won’t use any elements from the story Landis initially penned that was rewritten by Jack Stanley, while Trank has shown absolutely no interest in returning to the world, so it’s essentially a redo with roughly the same concept and premise, albeit with a twist.
