Having earned $474 million at the box office in the summer of 2015, Brad Peyton’s disaster epic San Andreas is the highest-grossing live-action movie of Dwayne Johnson’s career that isn’t part of either the Fast & Furious or Jumanji franchises, so it wasn’t much of a shock when a sequel was placed into active development shortly afterwards.
The initial outline was for Johnson’s helicopter rescue pilot Ray Gaines to be forced into action when volcanic eruptions and earthquakes around the Ring of Fire begin to cause devastation, and San Andreas 2 even got as far as hiring Neil Widener and Gavin James to pen the script, but over five years have passed since then and the project hasn’t gained any further momentum.
Johnson and Peyton clearly have a strong working relationship having collaborated on Journey 2: The Mysterious Island and Rampage either side of San Andreas, but they both seem to have moved on to other things. In a new interview, star Alexandra Daddario admitted that she doesn’t think the second installment will ever get around to happening.
“It was mentioned to me several years ago when I went in to New Line. I don’t think that the exec that I was speaking to is there anymore. But they had a draft written. As far as I know, it’s not happening. It’s been a long time. I don’t think so. I think it was in development at one point, I should say. But that happens in Hollywood all the time.”
He may have ruled himself out of a Fast & Furious return, but Johnson is still one of the busiest men in Hollywood, with a slew of titles in various stages of production or development including a potential multi-film Jungle Cruise series, Netflix duo Red Notice and Ball & Chain, his continued adventures in the DCEU post-Black Adam, DC League of Super-Pets, Amazon’s festive action comedy Red One, another Jumanji and Hobbs & Shaw 2, so it doesn’t look as though he’s got the time to add yet another big budget blockbuster to his plate.
San Andreas was fine for what it was, but the disaster genre hardly lends itself to sequels, so a one-and-done effort is a perfectly acceptable outcome.
