The slasher genre got the Groundhog Day treatment last year with the release of Blumhouse's Happy Death Day. The PG-13, college-set horror thriller turned into a surprise hit with audiences and paved the way for a sequel to go into development. Now it looks like the wheels are finally starting to turn on Happy Death Day 2, and the sequel will bring in some new characters to interact with old favorites from the original.
New details related to Happy Death Day 2 have finally emerged, and it looks like the sequel is sticking reasonably close to the original. Specifically, Jessica Rothe and Israel Broussard are both set to return to the roles of Tree Gelbman and Carter, respectively. In addition to the returning members of the ensemble, Happy Death Day 2 has also reportedly tapped Life of Pi star Suraj Sharma and American Horror Story actress Sarah Yarkin as newcomers. On top of these new and returning actors, Deadline also reports that original Happy Death Day director Christopher Landon will return behind the camera.
From a plot point of view, it's also worth mentioning that it sounds like not much time will have passed between the end of the original Happy Death Day and the start of Happy Death Day 2. Jessica Rothe has spoken out about the plot of the slasher follow-up and mentioned that it would directly follow the events of the sequel, leaving minimal gap between the stories in the vain of Back to the Future and Back to the Future Part II. Such a trope is not uncommon in the horror genre, as it is quite similar to how Halloween II's opening scene directly lines up with the finale of John Carpenter's original film. Moreover, it has also been said that the sequel will take time to answer lingering questions from the first film and further explain the time loop phenomenon that has plagued Tree's life.
Of course, it is hardly surprising to see Blumhouse move to a Happy Death Day sequel so quickly after the first film's release. The horror-centric subset of Universal has seen great success in recent years with franchises like The Purge and M. Night Shyamalan's long-awaited (yet unexpected) Unbreakable sequel Split. Now, looking ahead to the next couple of years, Happy Death Day 2 joins an assortment of sequels that includes Halloween, The First Purge and Glass.
CinemaBlend will keep you posted with any more relevant updates related to Happy Death Day 2 as more details about the Blumhouse sequel become available to us. The film is expected to begin shooting this summer, and we will let you know when a definitive release date officially gets locked in on the Blumhouse calendar. Until then, check out our movie premiere guide to see what else is coming to theaters (horror genre or otherwise) in 2018!
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