Fede Alvarez comments on Don’t Breathe and Evil Dead sequels

Last Updated on October 12, 2021

While doing press for his GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO franchise entry THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB, which is now in theatres, director Fede Alvarez has also been fielding questions about sequels to his previous two films, the 2013 EVIL DEAD reboot and 2016's DON'T BREATHE. (Those films also happen to be the subject of this week's Face-Off: EVIL DEAD 2013 vs. DON'T BREATHE.) Last week, Alvarez mentioned that there is a script in place for a DON'T BREATHE 2, while a sequel to EVIL DEAD has never gotten that far into development.

JoBlo's own Eric Walkuski was able to speak with Alvarez recently, and during their conversation those potential sequels were brought up. When asked about the status of DON'T BREATHE 2, Alvarez said, 

We have a script, and we love it. If I'm going to direct it or not is something I don't know yet, but we love the story. Right now all I have in my head at this point is maybe I'll take a break, just because I've been working on this movie for two years. I never really jump to another movie once I finish one. I take some time. I really don't know at this point what I'm going to do next."

Some readers took Alvarez's comment about the lack of a script for the EVIL DEAD sequel to mean that project is never going to happen, so Eric asked him "Do you think another EVIL DEAD is off the table?" Alvarez replied, 

No, it's not off the table, not at all. Like DON'T BREATHE 2, those are fascinating worlds, and I love those movies. I think there are still things to do in that world, so it's totally not off the table."

I would love to see both of these sequels happen. It would be cool to have Jane Levy reprise the role of Mia from EVIL DEAD for another encounter with the Deadites, especially now that Bruce Campbell has retired from the role of franchise hero Ash. As for DON'T BREATHE 2, that movie needs to happen just so we can see what producer Sam Raimi meant when he called it "the greatest idea for a sequel I've ever heard." That's some high praise, and it's shocking that two years have gone by since Raimi said that and the film still hasn't made it into production.

As Alvarez mentioned, it's not a sure thing that he'll be directing DON'T BREATHE 2 if/when it happens. In fact, something he said to Eric makes it sound like he doesn't have a lot of interest in directing any sequels to his own work, whether it be DON'T BREATHE, EVIL DEAD 2013, or THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB.

I've never been interested in doing a sequel to one of my movies, to stay in the same place, but mostly because I write and direct my own movies, it takes me a lot more time than a director who gets a script. I work on the script for a year at least, and then another year making the film, so to stay in the same world making two movies for about five years of your life, I never do that. But I wouldn't be surprised, obviously, if the studio wants to tell more stories, and I think they should, because characters like her are pretty unique. You need to keep telling stories about her, otherwise they disappear. As much as we hate remakes and reboots, they're necessary to keep those characters alive, they'll die otherwise. Back when I made Evil Dead, a lot of people weren't happy with it, but if it wasn't because of that film there wouldn't have been the TV show that came afterwards, there wouldn't have been all those things that kept that brand alive."

I wouldn't be surprised to see Alvarez move on to a different project, like the follow-up to the 1986 classic LABYRINTH that he's attached to, and just work on DON'T BREATHE 2 and an EVIL DEAD sequel (if that moves forward) as producer and writer rather than director.