Since breaking out in 2010 thanks her her performance as Hit-Girl in Matthew Vaughn's violent comic book adaptation Kick-Ass, Chloe Moretz has grown from being a child actor to a full-fledged star. This rise has largely been thanks to her roles in dramatic movies like Let Me In, Hugo and Carrie, but now she's preparing to flex her comedy muscles in a big way by taking a part in director Nicholas Stoller's upcoming Neighbors 2.
News of this casting comes from Deadline, which sadly doesn't have any specific details regarding the plot of Neighbors 2 or what Chloe Moretz's character's role will be within what. What the trade does confirm is that the young actress is joining a cast full of stars returning from the first movie, including Seth Rogen as Mac, Rose Byrne as his wife Kelly, and Zac Efron as former frat house president Teddy. Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien, who wrote the script for the first Neighbors, are working on the screenplay for the sequel, but this time around Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and Nicholas Stoller are having input as well.
At the end of Neighbors, new parents Mac and Kelly were able to free themselves of their nemeses next door by instigating a gigantic frat party that was shut down by the cops - and ultimately Mac and the proud-but-dumb Teddy were able to bury the hatchet by posing outside of Abercrombie and Fitch. This conclusion doesn't leave a ton of avenues to explore in a sequel... but the fact that Chloe Moretz will be in the film might be a big hint about the direction that the project is going in. Given that the actress is now college-aged, is it possible that the main source of conflict in the follow-up will be about a sorority instead of a fraternity? It's kind of an obvious way to go, but it's hard not to have faith in the braintrust that made the first movie so funny.
Chloe Moretz hasn't been on the big screen since sharing screentime with Denzel Washington in 2014's The Equalizer, but she has an interesting slate of movies coming up., In early August she will be found in the Gillian Flynn adaptation Dark Places, and in January she will be entering the world of sci-fi with The 5th Wave. She has also completed production on Sacha Gervasi's crime drama November Criminals, and is signed on to star in the biopic Brain on Fire.
Neighbors 2 is currently sporting a May 13, 2016 release date from Universal Pictures, so production will likely start on the movie in the next few months. As such, you should be on the lookout for more casting stories in the next few weeks, as they will surely be popping up.
