It has been confirmed that Naomi Ackie has joined David Robert Mitchell’s “They Follow,” which reunites the filmmaker with Maika Monroe on a sequel to their 2014 horror film “It Follows.”
Mitchell and Monroe have been trying to make this sequel for almost a decade. They were supposed to shoot it in 2023, then 2024 and 2025. But it’s definitely happening this summer, as production is set to begin next month. Neon is backing the project.
Ackie is coming off an Independent Spirit Award win for her supporting turn in “Sorry, Baby.” Recently she was seen in “Mickey 17,” “The Thursday Murder Club,” “Blink Twice,” and “I Love Boosters.”
The sequel takes place ten years after the events of the first film. It joins the growing list of original horror movies recently greenlit for sequels, including “Talk to Me,” “The Black Phone,” “Smile,” “M3GAN,” “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” “Ready or Not,” and “The Curse of La Llorona.”
The one thing that has me semi-hopeful about “They Follow” is the filmmaker behind it. Mitchell is a rule-breaker, and his concise, subtle work on “It Follows” was great. He’s currently in post-production on “The End of Oak Street,” formerly “Flowervale Street,” an ’80s-set time-travel dinosaur movie starring Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, slated for an August 2026 release.
In “It Follows,” Monroe plays a 19-year-old who loses her virginity and is later told by her partner that he has passed on a curse — something that will follow and haunt her wherever she goes. The film is layered with clever undertones: the only way for the protagonist to rid herself of this “disease” is to sleep with someone else and pass it on.
Minimalist and sexual, it remains one of the best horror films of the past decade. The film refused to adhere to the usual conventions of 21st-century horror — Mitchell delivered a stunningly authoritative work, blending the surreal with the unnervingly real. Every scene dripped with unbearable dread, calling to mind early John Carpenter. Scene after scene, viewers were engulfed in an inescapable nightmare.
The ‘Smile’ franchise has a new director. David Bruckner, who made “The Night House” and the 2022 “Hellraiser” reboot, has been hired to direct “Smile 3” for Paramount.