Alvarez On “Breathe,” “Evil,” “Labyrinth” Sequels
Uruguayan filmmaker Fede Alvarez first came to many people’s attention when, for his first feature effort, he scored the chance to direct the high profile remake of “Evil Dead”. Much more brutal than the Sam Raimi directed trilogy, the new take on the property scored fairly good reviews and made back over five times its $17 million budget – a very good start.
Things only got better with “Don’t Breathe,” a high profile thriller about three friends trapped inside the house of a psychopathic blind war veteran. Nominated and winning several genre awards, the film scored very good reviews and went on to make $157 million worldwide from a $10 million budget.
That made Alvarez a not unexpected choice for “The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” Sony’s attempt to revive “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” franchise with a far more economical budget. The film opens this coming Friday in many territories and Alvarez recently offered some updates on what’s next for him.
Speaking with
Movieweb, he touched upon a recent Twitter poll in which he asked whether people would rather see an “Evil Dead” or a “Don’t Breathe” sequel, to which most responded more “Evil Dead” – a decision Alvarez seeming doesn’t have much interest in:
“When I tweeted that I was interested in seeing what people prefer. We were having some internal debates about what people would be interested in most. Unfortunately, Evil Dead 2 won. Which, I guess I would have preferred Don’t Breathe 2 to win because it’s one of my own creations. Obviously Evil Dead has the bigger following. So that’s what happened.”
One key difference? “Evil Dead 2” doesn’t have a script whereas “Don’t Breathe 2” has a screenplay ready to go. Alvarez admits he’s not sure how much involvement in either he’ll have:
“…it doesn’t mean that we won’t make them. And that I make them might not be that I’m directing, but I might be producing. They’re just ideas right now. Nothing to announce officially. We do have a script for Don’t Breathe 2. That’s the only difference. We don’t have a script for Evil Dead 2. But we do have a script for Don’t Breathe 2 that we wrote. Once I’m done with [The Girl in the Spider’s Web] we’re gonna start thinking of ways to bring that story to the screen. Me directing or me producing. It really depends on the time that we’ll have. I’m particularly excited about that because it’s a really different sequel, when it comes to sequels. It’s a very different approach and I’m excited about that.”
He also offered clarification on recent reports that the script for a sequel to Jim Henson’s 1986 fantasy classic “Labyrinth” was complete, one he co-wrote with Jay Basu. While it’s true that a draft is done, the process still has a long way to go:
“I never said the script is complete. I never believe the script is actually complete. We do have a first version of it, we have a first version that I think is amazing. I’m sure we’ve gotta write more because that’s the way we do with Jay [Basu]. We’re gonna keep writing until we believe that it’s a perfect script. We’re gonna try to get there because that’s one that has such a beloved fanbase, me included in it, that I would never do anything that’s far from perfect. Or at least I’m gonna try to aim there.
It will take some time because that’s not something you rush. It’s been enough years that I think no one should rush that one. We’re gonna try and get it right… we had what I thought was this great idea to continue that story and jump so many years later and pick up that story now. We got really excited about that and we started collaborating with the Henson’s, with Jim Henson’s daughter.”
None of these proposed sequels has a release date as yet. “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” opens in U.S. cinemas on November 9th.
