Mere days ago, the Philippou brothers were musing on the possibility of a sequel to Talk to Me, their A24-distributed supernatural horror film that’s all but stormed into the hearts and nightmares of critics and audiences alike. Their attitude? Healthy enthusiasm for the world they crafted, but otherwise dubious on whether it could or should actually happen.
But now we reckon that was just a media-training answer to throw us off the scent, because if the filmmakers are gung-ho enough about Talk to Me to shoot an entire prequel that they’re hoping to release at some point, there’s no way the script for Talk to Me 2 isn’t at least halfway finished by now.
Indeed, per The Hollywood Reporter, Danny Philippou revealed that he and his brother Michael shot a full Talk to Me prequel that focuses on the character Duckett, the boy who falls victim to possession in the film’s cold open, and by the sounds of it, it wasn’t your typical footage.
“We actually shot an entire Duckett prequel already. It’s told entirely through the perspective of mobile phones and social media, so maybe down the line we can release that.”
And shortly after, Danny seemed to walk back whatever hesitation he did have about the possibility of a sequel.
“But also while writing the first film, you can’t help but write scenes for a second film. So there’s so many scenes. The mythology was so thick, and if A24 gave us the opportunity, we wouldn’t be able to resist. I feel like we’d jump at it.”
Suffice to say at this point that Talk to Me is absolutely begging to be whacked on the head with the franchise hammer, and while horror properties getting such a treatment rarely ends up being a good thing (just ask Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, and pretty much every major player outside of Scream), the only surefire chance of Talk to Me failing as a franchise is if it never tries to be.
Talk to Me is now playing in theaters.