Produced by The Evil Dead‘s Sam Raimi, directed by The Hills Have Eyes and Piranha 3D‘s Alexandre Aja with cinematography from Annabelle: Creation, The Nun and The Haunting of Bly Manor‘s Maxime Alexandre and adored by known genre fiend Quentin Tarantino, Crawl was always going to become an instant cult classic when it arrived in the summer of 2019.
Bolstered by the excellent father/daughter dynamic generated by stars Kayla Scodelario and Barry Pepper, the white-knuckle tale of a family trying to survive an alligator attack in the midst of a Category 5 hurricane wears its B-movie influences as a proud badge of honor, and went on to earn strong reviews and pull in over $91 million at the box office, before ultimately finding itself as a firm favorite on streaming.
Aja first admitted his interest in making a sequel the very same month Crawl was released, and insider Daniel Richtman is now offering that the follow-up is already in early development. Of course, it was literally just a day or so ago that the filmmaker admitted that it’s something he talks about all the time and he’s putting a story together at the moment, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the project has been given the green light by Paramount quite yet.
However, with the studio’s new streaming service on a massive recruitment drive in terms of original content, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Crawl 2 ended up happening as a Paramount+ exclusive given the relatively low production costs involved, not to mention the initial success and continued popularity enjoyed by the first installment. In any case, once Aja hammers his outline into shape, we should realistically be finding out whether or not it’s a go for more edge of your seat alligator adventures.