It’s official: San Andreas 2 has been given the go-ahead at New Line.
That’s according to The Hollywood Reporter, announcing today that the studio has drafted in Neil Widener and Gavin James to pen the sequel, which looks set to send Dwayne Johnson’s grizzled search-and-rescue pilot to the infamous Ring of Fire. Indeed, New Line has secured much of the original team to return, including director Brad Peyton – who will also helm Rampage with Johnson – and producer Beau Flynn.
After grossing upwards of $470 million worldwide, news of a San Andreas sequel shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. With the vast majority of America’s west coast now lying in ruins, THR notes that Peyton’s follow-up will take the disaster porn to a global scale and, in particular, the perimeter of Earth’s gargantuan Pacific plate. In seismology, the Ring of Fire is the term given to a 25,000 mile stretch of land and sea that is considered the most active hotspot of tectonic activity on the planet, housing approximately 90 percent of all earthquakes on record.
In the spirit of bigger, bolder and darker, the new global location ought to give Peyton, Widener and James plenty of creative leeway to dream up the next big quake for Johnson’s character to tackle. It’s expected that Alexandra Daddario, Carla Gugino and Paul Giamatti will reprise their respective roles, while behind the lens Richard Brener, Michael Disco, and Samuel J. Brown are attached to produce.
No release date was scheduled for San Andreas 2 at this early stage, though we assume that New Line’s dream team of Peyton, Johnson, Flynn will tackle mutated beasts in Rampage before circling back to the studio’s other parade of CGI carnage.