ComingSoon.net was just down in Albuquerque, New Mexico where we got to spend some time on the set of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor’s follow-up to the 2006 action hit Crank, their second movie being a sci-fi action thriller starring Gerard Butler that has been using the working title of Game. (We’ll have lots more on the movie soon!)
While there, we had a chance to talk to Lakeshore Entertainment producers Robert Burke and David Rubin, and the latter answered a few questions about the impending sequel to Crank that Neveldine and Taylor will start prepping shortly after finishing the filming of their current project. The script has been finished for some time, and since the story takes place in L.A., they’d like to shoot back in L.A. in April.
(Note: The next paragraph contains a spoiler for Crank so if you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and stop reading about its sequel. Instead, go buy or rent it on DVD before reading on.)
The big question on everyone’s mind is how they’re going to deal with continuing the story of Jason Statham’s character Chev Chelios, who (2nd spoiler warning!) died at the end of the first movie. “It’s cool. That’s the central question and the way they’ve answered it is really exciting and fun,” Rubin told us in between takes of an intense action sequence, “It’s really funny and really clever. I remember when we made ‘Crank’ how we were shooting the scene where he died, and we all laughed because ‘there would never be a sequel to this movie.’ Those guys are just so unique and their vision is just so specific to them that if you are excited about their vision than you’ll love the way they solve and answer that question.” He also debunked the early rumors that Chev has a “robotic heart.” “That was a real stretch,” he chuckled.
When asked about other rumors that people who died in the first movie might be back, Rubin would only respond quizzically with, “You never know with those guys. Are they really alive or are they not? And are they those people or are they related to them?”
There could be some new actors joining for the sequel as well. “We have a lot of ideas right now about ‘Crank 2’ and a lot of really exciting stuff that the fans are really going to dig, and it’s just about the process of fantastic idea elimination,” Rubin continued. “Neveldine-Taylor like to start with a lot of ideas and they’re constantly exploring them and taking them to their fullest potential and then seeing which ones are going to live. We’re still processing all the ideas for this movie, and with ‘Crank 2’ it’s the same. The great thing with Neveldine-Taylor is the smallest idea they might have some times that we think is not really that prominent, can sometimes blossom into this huge thing. We’re still with this movie discovering all those things and working them out, and ‘Crank 2’, those guys are making a lot of notes and the ideas are still percolating. The script is great but it’s interesting because there’s Neveldine-Taylor as a writing team and there’s Neveldine-Taylor the directing team and the transformation happens when we’re actually in our office prepping the movie and when they become the directors of the movie, the ideas just transform and have a life of their own.”
Neveldine and Taylor’s current movie, The Untitled Gerard Butler Action Thriller just started shooting but they’re probably shooting for late ’08 for release and it should have a title by then. In the meantime, look for a write-up on our set visit sometime in the next few days.
