Extraction released on Netflix earlier this year and quickly became one of the hottest offerings on the streaming platform. It united the star power of Chris Hemsworth with stunt choreography veteran Sam Hargrave in the director’s chair. Blockbuster filmmaker Joe Russo, who produced the film alongside his brother Anthony, recently revealed that he is already working on the sequel.
“I started writing the sequel (prequel?) three weeks ago. It’s a great character to write for, with a fantastic performance from Hemsworth. So it makes my job easier. I think the mission is to up the scale on this one, both emotionally and physically.”
Extraction tells the tale of Tyler Rake, played by Chris Hemsworth, a black-market Mercenary who is charged with getting a young boy, the song of a drug lord, out of the clutches of a set of nefarious kidnappers. The rest of the film deals with Rake trying to keep the boy safe while battling an army of thugs, gang leaders, and officers and also grappling with the demons of his past.
Joe Russo’s statement seems to hint at the fact that the upcoming Extraction 2 will take place in the past. This bears out with what Hargrave has hinted at previously regarding the possibility of the film’s open ending spawning a franchise.
“There’s a lot of potential; it’s so interesting. And again, the beauty of an ambiguous ending is that there’s a lot of ways you can go. You can go forwards or backwards. Either way you look on the timeline are very interesting stories. It wasn’t something [discussed] on set. As soon as it got mentioned, that thought of a sequel, because, I guess, Netflix was enjoying the dailies and things were coming together and people were like, ‘Oh, this could be…’. You know, you talk about all these things. Is it a franchise? Is it all these things? Who knows until the movie comes out and the audience responds. They’ll be the ones who decide. But it was talked about.”
Upon its premiere, Extraction was frequently compared to John Wick. Both movies feature a larger-than-life anti-hero protagonist mowing down waves of enemies in breathlessly choreographed action scenes that relied on practical stunts rather than CGI. Since John Wick was successful in expanding the ‘Assassin kills criminals’ premise across multiple movies and an upcoming television spinoff, it is quite reasonable to assume the Russos could go the same way with the character of Tyler Rake.
For now, the Russo brothers are busy preparing for the release of their upcoming directorial feature Cherry, starring Tom Holland. Chris Hemsworth is gearing up for a fourth Thor movie once again helmed by Taika Waititi, for what could be the actor’s final lead appearance in the MCU.
Directed by Sam Hargrave and written by Joe Russo, Extraction stars Chris Hemsworth, Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Manoj Bajpayee, Randeep Hooda, Pankaj Tripathi, Derek Luke, Marc Donato, and David Harbour. It is currently available on Netflix. This news comes from ET Online.