Screenwriter Max Landis had stated that he was anxious to take the sequel to his surprise hit movie of teens who gain telekinetic superpowers into a darker territory than he already explored in the first film. However, he won’t be getting that chance. Last evening, he tweeted that he and studio Twentieth Century Fox had parted ways over him scripting the upcoming Chronicle 2.
.@PaulVRea I've been off Chronicle 2 for months now. Fox had a different direction they wanted to take the series, Josh was never attached.
— Max Landis (@Uptomyknees) July 18, 2013
Ultimately, I'm just very grateful to Fox for making a film as close to my original script as Chronicle was. For making the film at all.
— Max Landis (@Uptomyknees) July 18, 2013
So yeah it's sad that as of right now I'm not involved in the sequel, and don't know what it's about even, but ultimately I can't complain.
— Max Landis (@Uptomyknees) July 18, 2013
The truth is, when you're successful as a screenwriter, you have to just take everything in stride. That's like more than half the job.
— Max Landis (@Uptomyknees) July 18, 2013
Chronicle 2 is still probably happening, just not with my involvement as of now. It's a bummer, but there are no real hard feelings.
— Max Landis (@Uptomyknees) July 18, 2013
They hired new writers on it. I'm sure they'll announce soon. Just hope this answers the questions I've been getting everyday.
— Max Landis (@Uptomyknees) July 18, 2013
This turn of events is unsurprising as his father, director John Landis, had mentioned last October that Max was meeting with some resistance from the studio over where he wanted to take the sequel’s story. For his part, Max seems to be fairly sanguine about this turn of events, perhaps because he grew up seeing his father work on developing projects that didn’t happen for the usual various reasons that potential films fall apart.
While we won’t have a Landis-penned Chronicle sequel in our future, we do have his Frankenstein adaptation to look forward to.
I seem to recall that Fox’s so-called ‘new direction’ was basically more of the same, while Landis had in fact wanted to go in an actual new direction.