As far as I'm concerned, Steven C. Miller is one of the most fascinating filmmakers working today. Here's a guy who started his career by shooting a no-budget zombie movie called AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION in 9 days with a DVX-100 camera, and somehow this movie received distribution from Dimension Films. Miller has since gone on to make several horror and action films, including the SILENT NIGHT remake, recently knocking out multiple films a year while working with stars like Nicolas Cage, Bruce Willis, and John Cusack. I'm constantly impressed with the projects he gets and how much he works. Steven C. Miller is living the dream.
That dream just got even better, as Miller will now be able to add Sylvester Stallone – and possibly Arnold Schwarzenegger – to the list of stars he has worked with, as he has signed on to direct the sequel to the 2013 Stallone/Schwarzenegger team-up ESCAPE PLAN.
Mikael Håfström directed the first film, which told the following story:
One of the world's foremost authorities on structural security agrees to take on one last job: breaking out of an ultra-secret, high-tech facility called "The Tomb." Deceived and wrongly imprisoned, Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone) must recruit fellow inmate Emil Rottmayer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to help devise a daring, nearly impossible plan to escape from the most protected and fortified prison ever built.
ESCAPE PLAN co-writer Miles Chapman has returned to script the sequel.
Stallone is confirmed to be reprising the role of Ray Breslin in ESCAPE PLAN 2, although it has been said that he'll be stepping back into a supporting role for this one. Schwarzenegger is in talks to appear in the film, but a deal has not yet been closed.
Made on a budget of $50 million, ESCAPE PLAN earned over $137 million at the global box office – but only $25 million of that came from domestic audiences. Since the film was much more popular internationally than at home, the sequel will be co-produced by Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films and Chinese company Leomus Pictures. ESCAPE PLAN made almost $41 million in China.
Details on the sequel's plot have not been revealed, but it is known that there will be some Chinese story elements.
ESCAPE PLAN 2 is being produced by Randall Emmett, George Furla, Mark Canton, Zack Schiller, Robbie Brenner, and Jie Qiu. Ted Fox, Mark Stewart, Barry Brooker, Stan Wertlieb, and The Fyzz Facility's Wayne Marc Godfrey and Robert Jones will executive produce.
Steven C. Miller, I am jealous.
SILENT NIGHT