Major SPOILERS follow.
SAFE HOUSE made a nice chunk of change ($202 million worldwide), and so Universal has tapped screenwriter David Guggenheim to come back and see if he can work his magic a second time.
The movie dealt with a bored CIA agent (played by Ryan Reynolds) in a South African safe house who is caught up in a life-and-death spy plot when he is suddenly tasked with keeping a rogue agent (played by Denzel Washington) safe from the men come to kill him. Violence and several twists ensue, and it is… questionable whether Reynolds’ character succeeds in his mission. And by “questionable,” I mean he doesn’t as Denzel Washington’s character bites the South African dust in an unfortunate plot development that should have been the other way around.
And while Reynolds would in theory be the star of the sequel given the way things wrapped up with the first movie, “sources say the studio is keen to have Washington involved.” So will we be getting a combination prequel-sequel, with Reynolds carrying on with his mission while we intercut with Washington’s own past adventures? Couldn’t we have just solved this problem by having Washington kill Reynold at the end, thereby harkening back in a very cool way to his earlier comment of “only killing professionals?” It’d be a compliment to Reynold’s character and unexpected for those of us watching the movie, and so everyone would win. But no, we went with the significantly less challenging choice.
In other related news, on a scale of “safe” to “oh shit it’s the twist and we’re on the run from corrupt CIA agents,” how interested would you be in a sequel to SAFE HOUSE?
SAFE HOUSE’s Nora Arnezeder. She’s wearing a very nice shade of red.