Paul Feig is doing fans a simple favor.
The director has an update on the upcoming sequel to A Simple Favor starring Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick—and he's come bearing good news.
"We have the script. We love it," he said on SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Show on Oct. 20. "We kind of have a deal to do it, it's just figuring out scheduling and everything. That's the thing that rules Hollywood is schedules. Because now Blake is gonna have a baby and stuff. So, we'll see. It's gonna get made. It's just not sure what the timeline is right now."
The first film follows mommy vlogger Stephanie, played by Kendrick, who investigates the disappearance of her mysterious friend Emily (Lively). In May, Lively—who is expecting her fourth child with husband Ryan Reynolds—confirmed reports of a sequel to the 2018 dark comedy thriller on her Instagram Stories by quoting a lyric from Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do" and writing "Then I check it TWICE, oh."
The highly anticipated sequel would mark a first for Feig—who's also directed movies like Bridesmaids and The Heat—as he's never actually made a sequel before.
"I try to avoid it 'cause I think they're really hard," he explained. "Because the reason you latch into a movie the first time is you're just getting to know these characters and stuff and watching them repair their lives or go through an experience. So, it's hard to kind of, like, put them back at square one and do it again."
So why is Feig ready to give sequels a shot with A Simple Favor?
"I love the combo of Anna and Blake and so it was so funny," he said. "So I can't really tell the whole idea, but I thought, 'Oh, I can put them in a different world now that will be very fun to see Anna Kendrick be like, 'Where am I?'"
He added, "The whole reason I think that movie works is Anna's character is this nerdy mom who gets caught up in this really crazy situation that's so outside of her wheelhouse. And that's the fun of seeing her just kind of so mesmerized by stuff and kind of in over her head."
While Feig is remaining tight-lipped on what to expect from the sequel, he did drop one clue. "I'll just say it has an international flair to it," he noted. "Let's just say that."
He added that "there's a lot of stuff" they can do with the characters and where they are now. "It's fun," he continued. "Let's just say it's fun."