Following aLifesequel’s dismal box office debut, a sequel seems quite improbable. The minimalist sci-fi horror film wasn’t anticipated to have a sequel, but screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick really have some ideas for how to carry on the narrative. It appears like the team is planning a larger Alien-style sequel for their Alien-style movie.
Check out what they had to say about aLifesequel below (SPOILERSforLifeahead).
The movie by Daniel Espinosa closes with a laugh that is enhanced by a song choice that effectively breaks the tension. Calvin, a lethal child, escapes the grasp of David Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Miranda North (Rebecca Ferguson). In the end, the alien outwits them and travels to Earth with a critically injured David. Calvin might very easily wipe off the planet with all the harm he did aboard the International Space Station. Just think about what a dozen of the organism—which has the ability to reproduce—could achieve.
Reese thinks that seeing how the world responds to Calvin would make for an intriguing sequel (according to The Hollywood Reporter):
Just the fact that Calvin can now possibly reproduce, I think, is an interesting idea. We’ve dropped him in a situation that is teaming with life to hunt and to eat. That being the ocean, or the coast of Indonesia or Vietnam or wherever we are saying he’s landed. So that opens it up right there. But just the idea of firewalls could extend to Earth in the sense that now they’ve failed to contain Calvin to the station. The question is, how would the Earth react? Obviously, this was an international effort, so there are a lot of countries cooperating. And again, they would be trying to contain this thing from moving forward and yet there might be more Calvins to deal with. To us, that screams interesting sequel.
The conclusion technically does leave the door open for additional episodes, but it does it in a way that feels natural rather than by leaving open-ended questions or overt sequel warnings. Reese wants viewers to wonder what comes next despite the fact that the conclusion shows Calvin defeating some of humanity’s best:
We always wanted it to end in a creepy fashion that set up at least the possibility for future movies and but the script is very much a seesaw between Calvin having an advantage and the astronauts having an advantage. We always wanted them to be smart, but then a new problem present itself so when they got out of the frying pan they found themselves in the fire. And it just so happened that the last twist was that despite all their best intentions, Calvin was once again once step ahead of them at the end of the movie.
The conclusion fully shuts the door for Espinosa. He stated in a spoiler-filled interview that will appear on the website tomorrow that the story of Life is done when the credits roll. The director of Snabba Cash was inspired to make the movie in part by Wernick and Reese’s depressing and conventional ending:
There’s no sequel coming. It ends like that. It’s American pulp fiction. Not like the movie, but pulp fiction, The Twilight Zone, and The Night of the Living Dead. It’s a great tradition. If you look at American movies in the 1900s, those kind of endings solely exist in American cinema. It’s a great, great American tradition of those great turns. It’s almost like a joke on life. That’s why I put that poppy song afterward.
Life’s conclusion is really just a joke, but it’s a funny joke because it’s unexpected. Even the fact that David is still alive and that he failed despite everything he has experienced is amusing. Although Espinosa’s film occasionally takes unexpected turns, few viewers—including myself—saw that ending coming when the plot first started. Since Calvin is most likely not going to appear again, Espinosa and the screenwriters at least provided viewers a deeply moving final image to cherish.
In cinemas now is Life.
