Alexandre Aja has been directing movies for over two decades, but he’s still only 42 years old, and based on the fact that his most recent two efforts have arguably been his best ones yet, it looks as though the filmmaker is finally hitting his creative peak.
Netflix’s claustrophobic sci-fi thriller Oxygen has found itself lodged in the streaming service’s Top 10 most-watched list ever since it debuted last week, and it’s been drawing rave reviews from critics, currently sitting on an impressive Rotten Tomatoes score of 92%. It marks relatively new territory for Aja given that he’s spent the majority of his career in horror, but his creature feature Crawl was also a detour from the norm, as well as being an absolute blast.
Throwing giant CGI alligators into a father/daughter story that just so happens to take place in the midst of a Category 5 hurricane is a wild combination to say the least, but Crawl is pure B-tier entertainment from start to finish. Anchored by a pair of fantastic performances by Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper, it was one of the biggest sleeper hits of 2019 after pulling in $91 million at the box office on a $13 million budget, and Quentin Tarantino even named it as one of his favorites of the year.
It might not come burdened with obvious franchise potential, but in a new interview, Aja revealed that a Crawl sequel is something he’s talking about all the time, and he really wants it to happen.
“We’ve been talking about a sequel nonstop, and putting together a really, really fun take. I think the story of Haley is a really strong one, but I believe that Crawl is about nature taking back its due, and kind of like more hurricane driven, man versus animal. So maybe it will be another story altogether. We’re looking for that human story right now, that will be as strong as the one in the first one. To make the second one legit.”
Crawl also found a new audience after being added to the Netflix library last month, so even if none of the studios are willing to take a punt, surely the world’s most popular streaming platform would fund it given the success Aja’s brought them recently.