Baby Drivercrossed the $100 million mark at the domestic box office recently, and that is a beautiful thing. The film is a bona fide original—it’s not a franchise, adaptation, or superhero movie, and yet it’s now grossed $167.2 million worldwide. It’s proof that the audience exists for fresh, new stories told in compelling ways, as Sony sold an action crime thriller to audiences and what they got was an action crime thriller as told by filmmakerEdgar Wright. This wasn’t some lazy or clichéd shoot-em-up, it’s a wholly original spin on a tired formula with a killer soundtrack to boot.
Given the film’s success, Wright revealed in July that Sony had alreadyasked him to start thinking about a sequel, and indeed at the time Wright said he might consider doingBaby Driver 2because he felt there was somewhere more to go with the characters as opposed to his previous films, which had pretty close-ended conclusions. And in speaking withVulturerecently, Wright saysBaby Driver 2might happen:
“I’m not ruling out a sequel idea,” he admitted. “It has been spoken about and I have some cool ideas, so we’ll see where that goes.” Wright laughed. “ThenI’llbe one of those franchise guys!”
Indeed, earlier in the interview Wright talked about being genuinely surprised by how wellBaby Driverhas done, noting that the success of original movies likeBaby DriverandGet Outthis year are encouraging things:
“Even if I remove myself from the process, I’m just happy that it’s an original movie that’s done well. Getting an original movie made in this day and age, it seems at least five times harder, and maybe more, just because the majority of the studio effort is going into existing IP and franchises. Original films, by their very nature, become more of a gamble, and thus to see a studio take the gamble and have it pay off for them and for me is amazing. It makes me feel very encouraged and inspired that it did well.”
Wright subsequently clarified his comments in a more succinct manner:
“It’s not that studios need to take more gambles on original movies,” he said. “It’s that they should stopthinkingabout original movies as gambles.”
The filmmaker says he hasn’t yet settled on what his next project is, but did admit “it would be really great to write another original” in the wake ofBaby Driver. He’s also continuing to develop the post-apocalyptic coming-of-age adaptationGrasshopper Jungleand, as we mentioned, is consideringBaby Driver 2. But it would be pretty neat if, after such a big original success, Wright doubled down and made yet another original film that turned out to be a huge hit.
Original stories are far from dead, folks, and bless filmmakers like Wright andJordan Peelewho remain committed to telling them in new, interesting ways.
