I, like most people, was quite impressed with CHRONICLE. I can understand the frustration some of you felt when the “found footage” technique was abandoned in favor of capturing a particularly cool or beautiful shot, but my brain never really bothered to notice that kind of shift due to being so deeply engrossed in the story. A subsequent viewing has revealed some of the more jarring filmmaking choices at hand, but they honestly didn’t serve to distract me all that much from dialogue and character evolution that felt strongly defined and startlingly insightful. These qualities can be seen most of all in the way CHRONICLE shows how a good villain often, unknowingly, crafts their own prison of victimization from within which to rage against the world. It’s a good point, and one I’ve not often seen explored.
But Fox’s planned sequel to the superhero story may have hit a small snag – the studio doesn’t really like the draft written by original CHRONICLE scribe Max Landis. According to Max’s father John Landis (AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON): “He wrote a sequel, and it’s amazing, and the studio read it and said, ‘We want ‘Chronicle’ again!’ And he said, ‘No, this is the sequel, it’s the evolution, and they said ‘No, we want that movie again!’ So it’s difficult, we’re dealing with a difficult business.’”
It’s possible that the project may be shelved entirely if an agreement cannot be made – after all, a sequel was never officially announced. Conversely, it may also be possible that Fox might just bring in a new writer to take a crack at recapturing the figurateive “lightning in a bottle” effect and success of the first film. This seems to be the sort of sticking point that will make or break a sequel – what do you hope will happen, or do you not care much either way for a follow-up to CHRONICLE?