Hollywood is set to lose out on a reported $20 billion in revenue this year as the Coronavirus pandemic wreaks chaos on the movie industry, and while it will result in 2021 being the most stacked year for blockbusters in history, it could also lead to a seismic shift in how new releases are handled.
Disney have already ruffled more than a few feathers after pulling Mulan from the schedule and sending it exclusively to Disney Plus, while more and more titles are heading straight to VOD instead of waiting for a gap to open up in the theatrical calendar. This could ultimately lead to the studios focusing even more on sequels and franchises at the expense of smaller projects in the future, which isn’t great news when a lot of big budget output is already suffering from a severe lack of originality.
For instance, with Fantastic Beasts spluttering, Warner Bros. are left with the DCEU and to a lesser extent The Matrix as their only marketable assets. But we’re now hearing that the studio are planning a follow-up to one of their biggest standalone hits, albeit one that didn’t exactly set itself up to spawn a franchise.
According to our intel – which comes from the same sources that told us National Treasure 3, Now You See Me 3 and Scream 5 were in the works, well before any of them were announced – a sequel to Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is reportedly in the early stages of development, and WB want the filmmaker to return behind the camera. Or at the very least, have a hand in writing the script.
The plot is said to pick up right where the first movie left off, with Matthew McConaughey’s Coop heading back into the unknown to rejoin Anne Hathaway’s Brand on the distant-but-habitable planet she ended up stranded on. Interstellar made a shade under $700 million at the box office, so you can understand why the studio are keen on the idea, but it remains to be seen if there’s much interest from either audiences or Nolan himself for a return to the world of his sci-fi epic. Especially when it holds the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score in his entire filmography. Still, WB are reportedly hot on the idea and hopefully, it’ll end up materializing at some point.
