Shortly before the new Stephen King adaptation PET SEMATARY reached theatres last month, the film's producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura said that he doesn't start thinking about follow-ups to his films until they're a confirmed success, but admitted that he would be interested in making a PET SEMATARY prequel. Well, the film has gone on to become a confirmed success – it had a $21 million budget and has made over $100 million at the global box office – so follow-up ideas are now being discussed.
Scripted by Jeff Buhler (with Matt Greenberg receiving story credit), PET SEMATARY centered on
Dr. Louis Creed, who, after relocating with his wife Rachel and their two young children from Boston to rural Maine, discovers a mysterious burial ground hidden deep in the woods near the family’s new home. When tragedy strikes, Louis turns to his unusual neighbor, Jud Crandall, setting off a perilous chain reaction that unleashes an unfathomable evil with horrific consequences.
Speaking with ComicBook.com, Buhler revealed that ideas for another PET SEMATARY film are now being kicked around, and it sounds like they are indeed interested in making a prequel.
…for the most part, everybody feels like we've told the story of the Creeds. It's difficult, there are ways to continue this story, this particular story, but it feels almost, the trajectory of this film feels like we flew the plane into the mountain a little bit. It just blows up. So a lot of the ideas that we've been batting around currently, recently, have all been about, more about digging into the mythology of the town, these rituals that children present, the mythology of the Micmac, the Wendigo, the cemetery, the origins, Jud's life. So it looks like, I don't want to promise anything, because we don't know, we're not even down the road on an idea yet."
Of course, someone could come along after the Creeds to learn more about the mythology and rituals, but it's the reference to "the origins, Jud's life" that make it sound like they're thinking of going back in time.
Here's hoping that if and when they decide to move forward with another PET SEMATARY film they'll have better luck with it than PET SEMATARY 1989's director Mary Lambert had with the 1992 box office disappointment PET SEMATARY II.