Oh dear. The rumor mill surrounding sequels always gives me a pain, because it’s pretty much backroom arguments and reports of disasters that do not have much of a basis in reality. But when a sequel development gets into perpetual hot water, there might be something to the story. This might very well be the case with the planned sequel to Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, which has been reported to be in very dire straits.
According to the folks at Bloody-Disgusting, Fox is ‘freaking out’ over Prometheus 2, largely due to the departure of Damon Lindelof as scriptwriter. Lindelof reportedly planned Prometheus as a trilogy and has now departed from the project, leaving Fox and Ridley Scott high and dry in terms of their story arc. What’s more, Ridley Scott apparently has no clue how to continue the story of Elizabeth Shaw (that’s Noomi Rapace’s character) without Lindelof and is looking for a new writer to make everything come out all right.
Well, dang. Let us mention here that this is a rumor, not a press release. We’re talking about backroom sources making claims about the development of the Prometheus sequel. But it honestly does not surprise me that Scott might not have a clue what he’s doing – Prometheus felt like it did not have much of a clue either. I’m inclined to call shenanigans on this one. If Scott and the studio really had no idea where they were going with Prometheus, then they should not have made the movie in the first place, because it certainly does not stand on its own.
In slightly less surprising sequel news, there’s rumor to the effect that last year’s Dredd, which brought in far less money than it was supposed to, will likely not be getting its own sequel. But producer Adi Shankar has stated that he’s working on a Dredd short instead of an actual sequel. That’s about all he’ll say, but for those fans of Dredd, it might very well be enough.
So that’s where we’re at in sequel news. Definitely no sequel for Dredd (yet), but look forward to the short.
And as for Prometheus? We’ll have to wait and see what Scott can come up with. Chances are he’ll find a replacement for Lindelof and hopefully a way to reconcile everything for his trilogy.
Quite honestly, though, I was so unimpressed with Prometheus that I do not really care.