James Wan is no stranger to spooky horror franchises with three of the biggest modern ones under his belt – “Saw,” “Insidious” and “The Conjuring”.
Even he took a risk though with last year’s “Malignant” which was both marketed and started off as a supernatural spooker before morphing into an utterly wild, semi-parody to both his own work and a full-on tribute to the giallo genre.
The film was designed as a one-off, but has earned such a good response in some quarters there are calls for a sequel. Speaking with Comicbook.com recently, Wan explains that he rarely creates films with the intent of being franchise launchers. However if there’s more story to tell, he’ll move forward with it:
“That’s pretty much what I do from the very start, and not so much thinking that, ‘Oh, there’ll be a sequel for this,’ but I try to, with all my films, I try to have an idea of what the bigger world would look like, the umbrella universe, if you will. That way, when I make this particular film, I know what is happening at every moment of the film, at every moment of the storytelling, if you will.
Because I know the bigger world that the story takes place in, there are potentially other stories to tell, and that usually is dictated by what the audience wants. If they want more stories, then I have more stories to pull into it. That’s my approach, even all the way back to my first film with Saw, is I do know the bigger world, like [writer] Leigh [Whannell] and I knew the bigger world, and if we were fortunate enough to tell other stories, we have stories ready to tell.
I joked that, for the fans out there that want more of the films, that they should start a groundswell movement. Start a hashtag of a Malignant sequel.”
Budgeted at $40 million, the first film was released last September and only made $34 million at the box office – but was launched day-and-date on HBO Max. Reviews were very positive and the film has reportedly performed well on streaming since its release.
