The action movie sequel Law Abiding Citizen 2 has been given the greenlight, nearly a decade after the original film was released. Jamie Foxx as Nick Rice, the attorney who makes the deal.
Since its release, Law Abiding Citizen has not made much of an impression on the cinema landscape. At the time, its reception was mixed to negative, and the film currently stands at 26% on Rotten Tomatoes, though it does boast a 75% audience score. Its box office performance was also decent, bringing back a $127.9 million international gross off a budget of $50 million. It did well, but not enough to provoke discussion of a Law Abiding Citizen sequel at the time. Just four years later, Butler would strike gold with the action hit Olympus Has Fallen, which spawned two sequels and an impending fourth film titled Night Has Fallen, so it seemed that Law Abiding Citizen had been well and truly left in the dust.
Per Deadline, Law Abiding Citizen 2 is officially moving forward. Producers Lucas Foster and Alan Siegel are returning along with original star Gerard Butler and screenwriter Kurt Wimmer in producing capacities. Rivulet Films’ Rob Paris and Mike Witherill are also producing alongside Village Roadshow Pictures' executive producers Tristen Tuckfield and Jillian Apfelbaum. Currently, no information has been shared about the plot or cast of the film.
This news comes just a few months after the film experienced a resurgence in popularity on Netflix. The streaming service ed Law Abiding Citizen to their cata early December 2021, and it quickly rose to a lofty position at #3 on their weekly chart. It was holding its own in competition with then-current high-performing Netflix films including the Red Notice (which united Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot) and the Sandra Bullock thriller The Unforgivable.
Considering that Gerard Butler's producerial participation in Law Abiding Citizen 2 has already been announced, it seems unlikely that he will be starring in the project. If that was the case, it probably would have been announced at the same time. This means they are likely looking for a new star to build the project around, and it will be interesting to see if they go with an established action hero type like Butler already was at the time, or give a more fresh-faced star a shot at flexing their acting muscles in the genre.
Source: Deadline
