Leigh Whannell delivered one of 2018's surprise delights with throwback action thriller Upgrade. We wondered if he'd cook up a sequel, and he's now working on a TV series that will continue the story.
Upgrade is set in the near future, and follows the misadventures of Grey Trace. After his wife is killed during a brutal mugging that also leaves him paralyzed, Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) is approached by a billionaire inventor with an experimental cure in the form of a computer chip implant called STEM. The implant provides its host with heightened physical abilities, allowing Grey to exact revenge on those responsible for his wife’s death. But he starts to worry that he's not in control...
According to Deadline, the new series picks up a few years after the events of the film and broadens the universe with an evolved version of STEM and a new host – imagining a world in which the government repurposes STEM to help curb criminal activity. Sounds like Whannell firmly embracing the RoboCop of it all. With Blumhouse TV and Universal's telly arm's backing, he's co-created the series with Tim Walsh and opened a writer's room, which includes Krystal Ziv Houghton and James Roland. There's no word yet on where the series might land, but Universal's Stateside networks will no doubt enjoy the first look.