Fans immediately saw through the actor’s prank.
Over the past decade, Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett’s The Guest has slowly but surely gathered an impressive following among genre fans, leading to speculation about ever getting a follow-up film. Star Dan Stevens took to social media today to first excite audiences with the announcement of a sequel heading into production, only for fans to realize it was April Fool’s Day, confirming that this was merely an intentional joke about such a project. Interestingly, April Fool’s Day in 2022 saw the release of a sequel soundtrack, and while the sequel itself didn’t exist, it was a genuine compilation of new music that mirrored the events of what Wingard and Barrett had considered as a plot for a sequel.
“The Guest II will finally start production next week!” Stevens captioned his post on Instagram featuring the album art of the sequel soundtrack.
What might serve as somewhat of a relief to audiences is that, even if a sequel isn’t actually on the way, fans can head to theaters now to see a reunion between Wingard and Stevens, as the actor joined the MonsterVerse franchise in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
Back when Wingard and Barrett developed the sequel soundtrack, the pair had to grapple with concepts for a sequel that hadn’t been previously invested in. At the time, Wingard admitted that developing the compilation could have merely been one step towards an actual film.
“It’s really pushed me and Simon into a creative headspace. We’re talking about developing a potential sequel as a real project,” Wingard shared with Empire Magazine in 2022, while noting that Stevens “would love to do it.”
Barrett, on the other hand, previously shared that the more exciting opportunity for him would be to take the characters into entirely unexpected realms.
“So I would likely do something perverse, and just have Dan’s character be the successful owner of a local hardware store and the entire story is just about him dealing with a difficult supplier, but in a totally legal and healthy way, because he’s totally grown as a person,” the writer shared with ComicBook.com in 2021. “And so, in a sense, I think Seance was trying to be the slightly more optimistic version of the same narrative that You’re Next and The Guest somewhat explored with their characters. So, we’re never going to do just like, The Guest 2. Because I just don’t think … The Guest was just never meant to have a sequel like that. However, at this point, enough people have asked us about it, that of course, inevitably Adam and I have had enough conversations about what we would hypothetically do, that we’ve now developed a bunch of ideas that we’ve become very attached to, because we think they’re actually good.”
Stay tuned for updates on a possible future for The Guest II.
Would you like to see the movie get a sequel? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!
