Gerard Butler’s disaster thriller Greenland wasn’t a massive movie by either production or commercial standards, with the $35 million project earning a shade over $52 million at the box office, which was admittedly still an impressive tally when you consider it released into theaters last summer when the majority of the biggest markets were in a state of near-total shutdown.
However, the fact it’s gotten strong reviews across the board as one of the leading man’s best efforts yet and spent weeks dominating the streaming charts after arriving on VOD and then Amazon Prime has made sequel Migration a pretty big deal. In fact, it’s such a big deal that STX have stumped up over $75 million to secure the distribution rights to the film at the Cannes Virtual Market, exercising their contractual option to have first dibs should they be willing to match the highest offer tabled.
Migration will reunite star and producer Butler with director Ric Roman Waugh and onscreen wife Morena Baccarin, following the Garrity family as they’re forced to leave the safe haven they eventually made it to during Greenland‘s third act and flee across the frozen wastelands of mainland Europe. If the first installment was heavily indebted to Roland Emmerich’s 2012, then it sounds as though the follow up will be going full-blown The Day After Tomorrow.
Greenland: Migration is also getting a substantially larger $65 million budget, and is just one of many action thrillers on Butler’s horizons along with his fourth outing as Mike Banning in Night Has Fallen, Joe Carnahan’s Copshop and another collaboration with Waugh in Kandahar. On top of that, he’s also been announced for comic book adaptation Afterburn, spy thriller Remote Control and Bruce Willis vehicle Hair of the Dog, so it’s all systems go for the Scotsman.
