We may not have seen the last of Chris Hemsworth as Tyler Rake. The Netflix action flick Extraction has been met with solid reviews, and from the beginning it’s always looked like the potential launch of a franchise. But is that the case? According to director Sam Hargrave and writer Joe Russo, it’s already been discussed.
Hargrave, the stunt coordinator who made his directorial debut on Extraction, told Digital Spy before the movie’s released that a sequel, or possibly a sequel, has been talked about…
“We’re all going to wait to see how fans react to the film. And based on that, there have been discussions of different storylines that could take place in different times – both forward in time and backwards in time.”
“We’re just waiting to see what happens, and to see how the appetite is for these characters and for this film,” Hargrave continued. “And then we’ll make our decision. But there definitely have been discussions of broadening this world, for sure.”
Collider goes a bit further in their discussion with Hargrave, focusing in on a scene between the mercenary Rake, and his former ally Gaspar, played by Stranger Things‘ David Harbour. They ask Hargrave if their past history together could be an avenue for a followup movie, be it a sequel or a prequel…
“There’s a lot of potential; it’s so interesting. And again, the beauty of an ambiguous ending is that there’s a lot of ways you can go. You can go forwards or backwards. Either way you look on the timeline are very interesting stories.”
Hargrave continued, “It wasn’t something [discussed] on set. As soon as it got mentioned, that thought of a sequel — because, I guess, Netflix was enjoying the dailies and things were coming together and people were like, ‘Oh, this could be…’. You know, you talk about all these things. Is it a franchise? Is it all these things? Who knows until the movie comes out and the audience responds. They’ll be the ones who decide. But it was talked about. As soon as it was, Joe brought up an interesting point that most of the time, you get a sequel. Rarely do you go back in time into prequels. […] You get the sense that Chris and Harbour have a great chemistry […] so we thought that was a very interesting way — if you were to go backwards in time — that you could play with the prequel to a story like this.”
Turning to Russo, he seems enthusiastic about the idea of a prequel that could bring Hemsworth and Harbour back together…
“I thought their chemistry was fantastic in the film. I think Harbour’s amazing. He’s a scene-stealer. [A prequel] is a great idea. I think it would be interesting — you know, we traditionally go forward in franchises, but what if you went backwards? That would be an interesting concept to explore.”
When asked if there had already been discussions with Netflix, Russo added…
“Maybe. [Netflix was] very happy with the film and very supportive of it. They’ve been phenomenal to work with. Certainly, when you find an interesting character and an interesting world to explore with a great director, you’re going to want to continue to explore it. My brother and I love franchise filmmaking, we love serialized storytelling. I just think you can do interesting things with characters as you progress their story. You’re limited by two hours, you can only say so much, it’s a very specific craft. When you expand the amount of time you put that character onscreen, you can make other choices with them. So, it would be exciting at hell to go back to work on a second film in that series. We’ve had the preliminary conversations. The question is: Does it all make sense? Can we find the right story to tell? Are we happy to go tell that? Does Sam want to tell that story? Does Chris want to tell that story? There’s still a lot of work to be done.”
