The 2013 box office horror movie "Mama" has been green-lit for a sequel by Universal. A big question, however, revolves around whether lead actress Jessica Chastain will return to reprise her role as Anabel in "Mama 2".
According to The Wrap, an agency insider revealed that two-time Oscar-nominated actress Jessica Chastain is not expected to return for Mama 2. In the first Mama movie, Chastain and Game of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau played couple who adopted two of Coster-Waldau's orphaned nieces who were abandoned in the woods for five years following a tragic car crash.
"Starry Eyes" directors Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch will replace Andres Muschetti as the directors, IGN reported. Widmyer and Kolsch are supposedly in "final negotiations" with Universal to write and direct the sequel of the hit horror movie, which was produced by Guillermo del Toro.
Cinema Blend wrote that when "Mama" went on to become a huge hit, talks of a sequel immediately went about. But since the inception of a possible "Mama 2" production, Director Andres Muschetti has expressed zero interest in taking on the sequel as he had wanted to move on to other projects. Muschetti is now set to direct the book-to-movie adaptation of Stephen King's "It", which was originally slated to be directed by Cary Fukunaga.
Widmyer and Kolsch's horror movie portfolio is not to be ignored. Both are set to direct "Exorcism Diaries" for Summit. They also directed a portion of Blumhouse's horror anthology titled "Holidays".
They will be working with Scott Bernstein, Russel Ackerman and Lava Bear who have signed on as producers.
The original "Mama" only took $15 million to produce, but went home with earnings ten times the value it cost to created. Mama raked in $146 million worldwide plus a bevy of positive reviews.
There is still no final plot for "Mama 2", although there are different ways as to how the sequel could pan out. It could possibly be a prequel to how the story of Mama came to be or play on a different haunting.
Meanwhile, Jessica Chastain is set to star in this year's "The Huntsman: Winter's War" as Sara. This is a sequel to the 2012 film "Snow White and the Huntsman". Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron will reprise their roles as Eric and Ravenna the Evil Queen, respectively. Emily Blunt will also join the cast as Freya the Ice Queen. Chastain also leads the stellar cast of political thriller Miss Sloane, which also stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Concussion), Michael Stuhlbarg (Boardwalk Empire) and Alison Pill (The Newsroom).
