When Dwayne Johnson’s San Andreas came out back in 2015, it made a splash on the big screen and a slew of money worldwide. So much so that it seemed very likely Johnson and director Brad Peyton would team up for a sequel. Instead, they made Rampage and San Andreas never became a franchise. So, what’s stopping it? Well, two things.
Director Brad Peyton is coming off of directing a couple of episodes of the now cancelled Netflix series Daybreak. He has a TV mini Albedo coming up, but his schedule is seemingly open to helm San Andreas 2. Unfortunately, Dwayne Johnson’s isn’t and Peyton says that’s the first part of the problem, noting,
It’s all about Dwayne’s schedule. That’s the thing. He’s so busy with so much stuff. I definitely want to work with him again – he’s awesome, and he and I get along really, really well, obviously. For me with Dwayne, it’s just really fun to push each other, and to just try to outdo each other, and do stuff that we haven’t seen before.
Obviously, this component of Brad Peyton’s comments to The Beat makes sense. First, Dwayne Johnson always has myriad projects in the works and in fact one of them Red Notice actually had to halt for a time due to recent global events. So, his schedule is, I would assume, in disarray in this point and there’s going to have to be some mastermind figuring out how to reorder the pieces as the world opens back up.
The Rock has Red Notice to finish; he has DC’s Black Adam movie to work on and promote; in addition, there’s the already-filmed Jungle Cruise he’ll need to do press for down the line. Those are just the big projects, too. Plus, at this point given it has been five years since San Andreas came out, we’re probably more likely to see the next Jumanji sequel before we see Brad Peyton’s vision come to fruition.
Speaking of, the director’s vision is the other potential obstacle keeping San Andreas 2 from hitting the big screen at this point, though he did say he has ideas, which would some square with some rumors about the sequel possibly being about The Ring of Fire a few years ago.
I think that with San Andreas, it’s a challenge, because I said, I don’t want to repeat myself. I don’t want to just do San Andreas 2 and it be the same as San Andreas 1. There’s that challenge of what do you do that you haven’t seen before that doesn’t exist in this space? We have some ideas that I think can achieve that, and then it’s just about the big man getting some free time.
Still, is there interest in San Andreas 2? Other lead actress Alexandra Daddario recently said she would still be excited about making the movie, also remarking that the first one did well. So, really, there's no reason not to, in my opinion, but maybe that's wishful thinking.
Meanwhile, Jungle Cruise will feature a San Andreas reunion of sorts. So, I guess we’ll just have to content ourselves with that when the flick comes out next year as we continue to wait for the elusive San Andreas 2.
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