CHRONICLE Sequel to be Made, But Not with the Original's Director and Writer

CHRONICLE was one of the most awesome and one of best films of 2012. Because it was such a success (the film  grossed ten times its original budget at the box office), of course its studio 20th Century Fox is planning to make a sequel. Unfortunately, it looks like Chronicle's director Josh Trank and it's writer Max Landis won’t be involved at all in the sequel. Landis' tweet on twitter says "I've been off Chronicle 2 for months now. Fox had a different direction they wanted to take the series, Josh was never attached." He also says "Chronicle 2 is still probably happening, just not with my involvement as of now. It's a bummer, but there are no real hard feelings" [hit the jump to continue, and to check out Landis' vision for the sequel which was rejected by Fox]

A rumor surfaced that (20th Century) Fox was unhappy with Landis’ script for Chronicle 2.  Landis responded to claim that Fox liked the script, but the dark tone raised the question, “How do we all compromise to get something we want?” Landis and Fox were unable to find that compromise.

This should be not much of a surprise to those familiar with Fox. Fox has notoriously been known to make decisions that tend to lean away from what would be creatively good and lean on to what is more profit-generating (this was the studio that had severely abused Avengers director Joss Whedon way back when he was running his Firefly TV series)

MARTYR, LANDIS' CHRONICLE SEQUEL
Landis, via his twitter, has given us an idea what he would have planned for CHRONICLE 2. He said that it was not exactly a sequel that followed the first movie. Its title is MARTYR, and it focused on a new and entirely different character. Read what he has to say:

Gone was the aspirational “what would you do,” gone were the pranks and bromance, gone were lovely tragic Andrew and hopeful, bright Steve.

In their place was a dark, frustratingly unblinking stare into a complicated world that posed the question is it worth it to be a hero, told from the point of view of a heartbroken and insane woman who would martyr herself to the cause of being the world’s first villain.

It was, in my estimation, a sequel that elaborated on the ideas and situations from the first to create a different genre of movie. In the best of worlds, in my optimistic but wildly prejudiced eyes, this could make it an Aliens, a Terminator 2… in the worst a Grease 2. So, at the end of the day, maybe it’s better that Martyr never saw the light of day. Sad I didn’t get to do some of my other versions. The multi-movie low [budget] Chronicle-based found footage superhero universe culminating in an Avengers type team up was a real good one.

A fresh start with the focus on a new character might have been just what Chronicle needed in a sequel, since the original film’s story was wrapped up quite neatly and most of the principal cast (comic book style resurrections notwithstanding) didn’t make it all the way to the end credits. Somewhat predictably, Fox was not happy at the idea of leaving the successful first film behind and starting out on fresh, potentially risky, ground. Landis’ father, famed writer and director John Landis (An American Werewolf in London), said in an interview last year that his son had offered Fox an “evolution” of the story, and the studio’s response had been, “No, we want Chronicle again!”

Inevitably, Landis would have explored some details of the first film anyway. Landis says “The most frustrating thing is that I don’t know if I’ll get the opportunity to explain what MOGO was or what he was doing in that cave.” He also explained that he wanted for the movies to eventually culminate in an “Avengers-type team up”. Looks like we wont be seeing that. Instead, we get to find out if Fox could top what Landis would have envisioned what the sequel could have been.