Fede Alvarez's DON'T BREATHE starred Jane Levy, Dylan Minnette, and Daniel Zovatto as a trio of thieves who broke into the house of a blind man after hearing that he has a fortune stashed away. Unfortunately for them, the blind man (Stephen Lang) isn't quite so helpless as he seems. The film was a critical and commercial success and so it didn't take long before they were talking about a sequel.
While it's always tough to recapture that lightning in a bottle with a sequel, Stephen Lang teased to THR that although DON'T BREATHE 2 certainly connects to first film, it will be an entirely different beast.
I never walked away from a scene on this feeling like we'd left something on the table there. We really strived to get everything we could out of it. It has a tremendous kinship with the first film, but in many ways — in every way — it's very much its own thing.
The actor added that they spent quite a lot of time going over each one of the Blind Man's words and grunts to make each impactful. "We kind of debate and negotiate and massage every word, every phrase, every grunt," Lang said. "We all have a ball doing it, because we enjoy working together. On the day-to-day life on set, I had a lot of input into it." Production on the sequel kicked off early this year but was forced to shut down due to COVID-19 and didn't wrap up until just last month. Rodo Sayagues, who co-wrote the original film with Fede Alvarez, has made his directorial debut with the sequel, which he again wrote with Alvarez. The sequel will find the Blind Man having been "hiding out for years in an isolated cabin and has taken in and raised a young girl orphaned from a house fire. Their quiet existence is shattered when a group of kidnappers show up and take the girl, forcing the Blind Man to leave his safe haven to save her." DON'T BREATHE 2 is slated to be released on August 13, 2021.