Netflix wouldn’t have spent $200 million on an original high concept blockbuster starring A-listers Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot, all of whom are more than familiar with lending their talents to a multi-film series, if there wasn’t a plan in mind for a potential Red Notice franchise.
The globetrotting action epic comes to streaming next week, where it’s guaranteed to become one of the platform’s biggest hits ever, despite the reviews being less than enthusiastic. At the time of writing, Red Notice‘s Rotten Tomatoes score has plummeted to 35%, although the central trio are largely coming in for praise.
During an interview with Variety at the movie’s premiere, producer Hiram Garcia teased that sequels are already under consideration, as is almost everything to fall under he and Johnson’s Seven Bucks banner.
“What we have planned is to let’s see how this goes. I think there is… with Seven Bucks Productions, it’s almost like ‘franchise’ is just part of our conversation. But we’re also smart enough to say, ‘Let’s see how everything goes’.”
Garcia isn’t wrong, when you consider that almost everything the outfit touches has either gotten a sequel, has one in development, or had one announced that didn’t end up happening for whatever reason. The Rock anointed himself ‘Franchise Viagra’ for a reason, but as we’ve seen before with Michael Bay’s 6 Underground, a costly Netflix original like Red Notice drawing in massive viewing figures isn’t enough to guarantee a second installment if the critical consensus remains tepid at best.