One of those surprise sleeper horror hits that comes along every once in a while, It Follows has enjoyed exceptional word-of-mouth (including an extremely respectable four stars from **Empire) and box office far beyond anyone's expectations. Inevitably then, talk has turned to how to continue its success with a sequel.
“I don’t want to give away too much, but we’ve thought about it,” says Tom Quinn, co-president of distributors Radius-TWC. Director David Robert Mitchell, meanwhile, says he's "certainly open to it".
If you've yet to catch it, It Follows sees its protagonist doggedly pursued by a mysterious entity that manifests itself as a variety of shuffling injured strangers, or sometimes as people known to its victims. In an interesting twist on the slasher movie "promiscuous teens get killed" trope, its rules are that the curse is sexually transmitted, and if you find yourself affected, you can just shag someone else and get rid of it, like a chain letter.
The film's creepily ambiguous ending and that concept mean a series could potentially run and run (or maybe walk and walk, like the thing). Quinn doesn't reveal a great deal, but does hint at "flipping the title", which as EW point out gives us something like Follow It, which could potentially be a very smart reversal.
While the money men are inclined to strike while the iron's hot, however, Mitchell is more cautious. "I have a lot of different kinds of projects in many different genres," he told Vulture, "so I don’t know that a sequel would be the next thing that I would do. I just kinda want to see how things play out.”
Will the rights owners wait for him or continue without him? We'll keep you posted.