The Boogeyman 2
Stephen King’s short story serves as the literary base for The Boogeyman, the latest movie helmed by Rob Savage. The movie saw a theatrical release in the month of June and performed admirably with almost $85 million in gross revenue.
Hulu recently released the film for its digital streaming platform, which turned out to be ideal, as the makers of the movie initially wanted to release The Boogyeman straight to streaming. That being said, their decision to go theatrical made a handsome profit for 20th Century Studios.
Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina, and Vivien Lyra Blair star in pivotal roles in the film. Although King’s short story is the base for the creature and the plot, this film adaptation overhauls the script to make it more of a sequel to the original short story. King’s plot was focused on Lester Billings telling his horror story to William Harper in his house but the film reworks this premise.
There are hopes for a sequel, which we will be talking about in this article.
Here’s what we know about the sequel to The Boogyeman at the time of writing:
What is The Boogeyman about?
The movie initially focuses on William Harper (Chris Messina), a therapist reeling from the loss of his wife to an accident. His daughters, young Sawyer and adolescent Sadie, have trouble coping. The broken family’s troubles increase manifold when an unexpected patient walks into the house.
This patient is Lester Billings (David Dastmalchian) who introduces himself as the grieving father of three children, all of whom died under mysterious circumstances. William phones the authorities as Lester’s time begins to run out. As fate would foretell, he commits suicide at the Harper residence, leaving his “disease” behind that quickly spreads.
Following this tragic event, Sadie and Sawyer find themselves facing a formidable foe who wants to take advantage of their vulnerability and fractured sense of balance.
King’s original story did not focus on the Harper family but the writers of the movie placed its focus on this broken family confronting the monster creature for the first time.
Will there be a sequel to The Boogeyman?
At the time of writing, 20th Century and Hulu have not announced a sequel to The Boogeyman. All decisions in the filmmaking business are made on the promise of the sequel or the follow-up turning a profit on the buck. Luckily for The Boogeyman, its box office numbers are extremely encouraging. Given its slight budget and the enthusiasm of director Rob Savage, we expect a sequel to The Boogeyman to be greenlit.
While talking to Horror Geek Life, Savage addressed questions about a potential sequel. He had the following to say on the issue, which is not a lot but indicative of his excitement to continue the story:
“We have the best idea for a sequel, and we’ll see if the numbers make sense and if we get to do it. But me and Mark Heyman, who wrote the movie, have been playing with this idea. We took it to the studio, and the studio’s excited about it. It’s playing in a whole different kind of horror space.”
Vivien Blair, the young star of the film, also expressed a desire to appear in the second movie, if it happens, or perhaps even a spin-off that might feature her character. The Boogeyman has all the trappings of kickstarting a successful modern-day horror franchise. The dearth of good material today has plagued the industry fervently. Given the reception from the fans, the producers might be tempted to take this idea forward.
We will update our readers with more information over the next few months.
What could The Boogeyman 2 be about?
As mentioned above, The Boogeyman does not adapt King’s story, which focuses on the Billings family. Hence, there are strong chances that a follow-up to The Boogeyman could focus on the Billings family and how they suffered the unspeakable tragedies. What works in favour of that idea is the profile of actors cast in The Boogeyman to play Leser and Rita Billings. Both David Dastmalchian and Marin Ireland are huge names who can easily fill theatres if they were to star as the central couple in a follow-up movie.
Another idea could be to explore the origins of the monster, which would once again see the writers extrapolate the idea into a focused story. It is unclear if there is a source material for the same yet, and the lack of one would make the job difficult.
A very remote possibility of continuing the story with the Harper family and the return of the Boogeyman exists. But we would not read too much into that at the moment.
When could The Boogeyman 2 be released?
As we don’t have any concrete information to go on, it’s fair to assume that the film won’t be ready until it is ready. It would be worth revisiting a release date for the sequel after it is discussed in public forums by creatives or producers from the studios. If a second film is announced, development on the project could start by next year if there is a positive resolution to the writers’ strike.
Should the production process begin in 2024, it is fair to assume that it might not be until 2025 or 2026 that we see a prequel or sequel to The Boogeyman.
That’s all we know for now but if we do hear news of another Boogeyman movie, we will update this page with the relevant information.
Did you enjoy The Boogeyman? What do you think could happen in the sequel? Let us know in the comments below.