Is a Baby Dri­ver sequel already on the way?

Edgar Wright’s fil­mog­ra­phy is some­thing a lot of direc­tors would be envi­ous of. Since 2004 the British writer/​director has made a string of high­ly orig­i­nal and inven­tive films, devel­op­ing his dis­tinc­tive film­mak­ing style while win­ning con­sid­er­able acclaim. One thing miss­ing from his career so far, how­ev­er, is a sequel.

That might be about to change fol­low­ing Wright’s lat­est suc­cess, Baby Dri­ver. After a strong open­ing week­end in which the film grossed $30 mil­lion, it might well be going for anoth­er spin around the block. In an inter­view with Empire, Wright stat­ed that ​“the stu­dio have asked me to think about writ­ing a sequel and it is one of the ones that I might do.” He’s even thought about where the sto­ry might go next, and what role Ansel Elgort’s title char­ac­ter, Baby, would play in it.

Wright’s appar­ent enthu­si­asm to cre­ate fresh mate­r­i­al from his musi­cal thrill-ride is par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ing as he is not one to fol­low a pre­dictable path. Wright could have eas­i­ly cap­i­talised on the suc­cess of Shaun of the Dead by mak­ing a sequel. Instead he chose to con­tin­ue cre­at­ing new nar­ra­tives around orig­i­nal char­ac­ters, result­ing in Hot Fuzz and The World’s End.

Although we are def­i­nite­ly up for see­ing anoth­er Wright heist caper (in our review we described Baby Dri­ver as ​“absurd­ly enjoy­able”), this news once again high­lights the cur­rent lack of orig­i­nal, stand­alone prop­er­ties in Hol­ly­wood. Wright’s film is one of only a few block­busters being released this sum­mer that is not a sequel, reboot or part of an exist­ing franchise.

A pos­si­ble sequel to Baby Dri­ver osten­si­bly adding to this prob­lem, this is just the real­i­ty of the indus­try in 2017. As long as Wright is able keep mak­ing the films he wants to make, we’ll be excit­ed to see what he has in store for us fur­ther down the road.