Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman, and Aaron Eckhart leave the White House for the sequel London Has Fallen

Who would have thought that Gerard Butler would have beaten Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx at the box office? In the showdown of Presidential movies, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN fared a lot better than WHITE HOUSE DOWN. In fact, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN performed well enough to warrant a sequel. Screen Daily is reporting that not only will Butler return for the sequel LONDON HAS FALLEN, but so will Aaron Eckhart, Radha Mitchell, Angela Bassett and Morgan Freeman.

LONDON HAS FALLEN will begin production in May 2014 and will be produced by Millennium Films and Focus Features. There is even a plot synopsis:

A plot to strike the city during the funeral of the British Prime Minister. Only the President Of The United States, his secret service head and an English MI6 agent can save the day.

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN was a fun action movie that felt like a big screen version of 24 (director Antoine Fuqua was once attached to the movie version of Kiefer Sutherland‘s recently revived series) but received middling reviews from critics. The $70 million budgeted film went on to gross $160 million worldwide. While those are not huge numbers, they do represent the best film box office for FilmDistrict, who released OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN.

No word on whether Antoine Fuqua is returning for LONDON HAS FALLEN, but I would expect if he is not that a new director will be announced soon. With everyone else returning, it would be nice to see some consistency behind the camera as well. Maybe this can become a new franchise where Gerard Butler goes around the world destroying famous cities. What is next, TOKYO HAS FALLEN? PARIS HAS FALLEN? The possibilities are endless!