Let’s cut straight to the chase: whether you liked it or lumped it, Extraction has been a bona fide hit for Netflix.
Headed up by MCU veteran Chris Hemsworth – and featuring another MCU alumni in writer-producer Joe Russo (Avengers: Endgame) – the brutal war drama topped streaming charts all over the globe, sparking speculation that a sequel could be afoot at Netflix HQ.
In fact, as Collider learned recently, both Russo and director Sam Hargrave (who’s also worked in the MCU) have openly discussed the possibility of continuing the story of Extraction – be it via a prequel or straight-up sequel. Hargrave, for instance, is the first to admit that there’s still “a lot of potential” for another story. Which is to say that Extraction‘s ambiguous ending left viewers itching to know more.
Whatever the case, the momentum is beginning to build for Extraction 2 – or whatever it winds up being called – as Hargrave told Collider:
“We discussed how is [Gaspar] gonna beat [Tyler Rake]. We discussed it and our backstory is that those two guys — and, spoiler alert, who knows whether there could be prequels or sequels could possibly go if Netflix likes the movie —but their backstory is these guys trained together and they spent a lot of time together in the military and even outside of that, in private military sector, and their skills would be matched but they just went in different directions. Harbour[‘s character] ‘went native,’ you might say.
He found a life in Bangladesh and stayed there and Rake kept going down that [other] path. But their skillset, if you matched them up, they’re kind of evenly matched. So, to make up for the fact that Rake has been doing [this work] consistently and Harbour[‘s character] has not, we made sure that Chris had enough damage, if he was beaten down enough, we’d believe that Harbour had the skills to take him down.”
Elsewhere in his chat with the outlet, Hargrave continued to talk about the possibility of another movie, saying:
“As soon as it got mentioned, that thought of a sequel — because, I guess, Netflix was enjoying the dailies and things were coming together and people were like, ‘Oh, this could be…’. You know, you talk about all these things. Is it a franchise? Is it all these things? Who knows until the movie comes out and the audience responds. They’ll be the ones who decide. But it was talked about. As soon as it was, Joe brought up an interesting point that most of the time, you get a sequel. Rarely do you go back in time into prequels. […] You get the sense that Chris and Harbour have a great chemistry […] so we thought that was a very interesting way — if you were to go backwards in time — that you could play with the prequel to a story like this.”
How, exactly, the Powers That Be will build on these rock-solid foundations remains to be seen, but it’s pretty clear that Netflix has a potential franchise-starter in its midst.
The question, really, is whether Chris Hemsworth can find time on his busy schedule to commit to Extraction 2. Let’s not forget that the Aussie actor has Thor: Love and Thunder coming down the pike, and will likely enjoy one or two more appearances in the MCU beyond 2022. Still, given that we’ve heard a sequel is already in early development, we’re certain he’ll be able to squeeze it in.
For now, though, Netflix subscribers can enjoy Extraction and seeing Chris Hemsworth sink his teeth into the meaty role of Tyler Rake, a gruff mercenary-for-hire so badass, we’re willing to bet he stands a chance against master assassin John Wick.