Chronicle Sequel in Development With Female Lead

The 2012 found footage movie Chronicle was huge upon its release, kickstarting the career of director Josh Trank (landing him jobs like the Fantastic Four reboot and even Venom) and putting actors Dane DeHaan and Michael B. Jordan on the road to stardom. It was also a major success at the box office, bringing in over ten times its budget at the global box office. In the years after it hit big there were attempts at making a follow-up, all of which failed to materialize. Speaking in a new interview, producer John Davis says that a sequel is in the works.

“Chronicle was literally the best return on investment, any of my movies ever made,” Davis told Forbes. “Chronicle we did for $12 million, and it grossed $126.64 million worldwide. Then it had a huge afterlife in syndication. It’s one of the most financially successful movies in my stable. We’re working on Chronicle 2 right now, and I think it’s going to be great. We’re working on it at Fox (20th Century Studios). It’s going to give us a chance to tell the story in a different way. We’re going to tell it from the female point of view. It will have been ten years since the event happened in Seattle, and a lot of it’s going to deal with fake news and real news and cover-ups. More interestingly, it’s the next generation getting these powers that are corruptive. These are young women just finishing college, they are empowered, and this is their journey. I mean, what a new and interesting story you can tell there.”

It seems unlikely that the new version of a Chronicle sequel will be using any of the previously developed scripts. Original screenwriter Max Landis wrote a draft for a sequel but in the years since the film was released has been accused of sexual and emotional abuse by multiple women. Who penned the new script remains unclear.

Another reason that a sequel to Chronicle didn’t happen sooner though is that Trank himself attempted to disrupt development at every turn.

“I made it difficult for them to set up meetings,” Trank told Polygon last year. “I was dodgy about stuff. I did a lot of sh-tty things. Because I really didn’t ever want to see Chronicle 2 happen. That was my worst nightmare. First of all, I’m not doing it. Second, if somebody else does it, then you know it’s gonna be a piece of sh-t.”

Time will tell if he was right.