As I’ve written several times over the past few weeks, Paramount Pictures’ Pet Sematary (read our review) was a quiet hit. Left out of the majority of box office reports, the new take on Stephen King‘s novel hit $100 million worldwide on a reported $20mm budget. That’s good enough for a sequel, and if the studio were to make another, the producers have already expressed a desire to explore a prequel, rather than a sequel.
In a new interview, screenwriter Jeff Buhler echoes that, while they could continue the story, it always ends in disaster.
“We had discussions about possible followup films, and for the most part, everybody feels like we’ve told the story of the Creeds,” Buhler told Comicbook. “It’s difficult, there are ways to continue this story, this particular story, but it feels almost, the trajectory of this film feels like we flew the plane into the mountain a little bit. It just blows up.”
While there are rumors about a prequel centered on John Lithgow‘s Jud Crandall, the filmmakers could explore more of the town’s mythology, including that of the dreaded Wendigo!
“So a lot of the ideas that we’ve been batting around currently, recently, have all been about, more about digging into the mythology of the town, these rituals that children present, the mythology of the Micmac, the Wendigo, the cemetery, the origins, Jud’s life,” Buhler explained. “So it looks like, I don’t want to promise anything, because we don’t know, we’re not even down the road on an idea yet.”
It took a long time for Paramount to pull the trigger on the remake, which was in development for years. The box office wasn’t strong enough to send them off and running, although it does sound like they’re at least tinkering with ideas. What we do know for a fact is that the Creed story has concluded.
What would you like to see in the next Pet Sematary?
