Ridley Scott & Kevin Macdonald Planning Life in a Day Sequel

Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) and Ridley Scott (All the Money in the World)’s 2011 crowdsourced documentary Life in a Day was a rave success after its release and after spawning similar projects in other countries, the duo are reuniting to craft a 2020 sequel, according to Deadline.

The new film, entitled Life in a Day 2020, will call on millions of people around the world to film their lives on July 25 and submit it via any video-sharing platform, with the filmmakers then taking the footage and whittling it down into a feature-length documentary helmed by Macdonald.

“This project truly demonstrates the uniqueness of YouTube by showcasing the power of the human experience told through the eyes and cameras of individuals around the world,” Susanne Daniels, global head of original content at YouTube, said in a statement.

The sequel, which is being produced by Scott’s RSA Films in association with Flying Object, is set to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and on YouTube in 2021. The first film was crafted in July 2010 as a manner of celebrating YouTube’s fifth anniversary, with over 80,000 submissions being sent to the Oscar-winning filmmaker and following its debut on YouTube in 2011 has since been viewed more than 16 million times.

“Making the first Life In A Day was one of the most joyful and eye-opening experiences of my life,” Macdonald said in a statement. “Contributors were generous enough to share often quite intimate moments from their lives as part of a huge, life-affirming, film-making experiment. I am thrilled, 10 years later, that we are making Life In A Day 2020. In that time, how have we changed? How has our relationship to filming ourselves changed? And at this extraordinary turning point in history what are we hoping for in our future?”

The sequel is being helmed by Macdonald with Scott and Kai Hsiung serving as executive producers while Jack Arbuthnott and Tim Partridge are attached as producers.