Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is one of the hottest movies of 2025, re-sparking moviegoers’ passions for original cinematic works. The theatrical experience of seeing Sinners was up there with the most celebrated premium releases (in IMAX and 70mm print), and the mix of all-too-familiar crime-horror genre staples and deep cultural lore. In fact, the world and lore that Coogler built into Sinners was so rich that the ending twist revealed in the post-credits scene immediately had many viewers asking questions about a sequel. With the potential to hop through different epochs of time in a larger story about the powerful forces of music, ambition, and human connection, it feels like Sinners has all the potential in the world to grow into an entire universe of films.
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So what’s coming next? Is Sinners 2 in the works, or does Coogler have different plans for how this world can continue?
Is Sinners Getting A Sequel?
If you were hoping that the end of Sinners was setting up a sequel film, you may want to rethink that expectation. Writer/director Ryan Coogler has already stated, on the record, that he never intended for Sinners to be a franchise universe; in fact, after working with Marvel on two Black Panther movies Coogler made a pointed effort to make his next directorial effort an original IP that was meant to be a standalone experience.
“I’ve been in a space of making franchise films for a bit, so I wanted to get away from that,” Coogler explained to Ebony Magazine earlier this year. “I was looking forward to working on a film that felt original and personal to me, and had an appetite for delivering something to audiences that was original and unique.”
That sounds like the committed resolve of a director who had a definitive plan and executed it. Sinners earned $365 million worldwide against an estimated budget as high as $100M. That’s a strong enough testament to Coogler’s ability to craft an original cinematic vision and sell it to audiences, largely on the strength of his name (and star Michael B. Jordan’s name). Yet, it’s also a low enough profit margin to have Warner Bros. Pictures settle on the idea of Sinners being a one-and-done investment. If anything, the film’s strong performance on HBO Max streaming will serve as a final endorsement for the studio to greenlight the next original project Coogler pitches. But as for Sinners 2? It doesn’t look likely.
Sinners Could Continue As A Prequel or Spinoff
These days, there are many different ways to stretch an original IP into a franchise IP, without ever devaluing the original work. In the case of Sinners, there is a lot of rich potential to go that exact route.
One pitch that’s already been put out on the interwebs is a Sinners prequel/spinoff film. That project would move things fully into the crime-thriller genre, focusing on the Smokestack Twins (both played by Michael B. Jordan) coming to Chicago and making a name for themselves in the mob wars taking place there. We saw a similar strategy from filmmaker Zack Snyder, who followed up his 2021 zombie apocalypse film Army of the Dead with a heist-caper prequel/spinoff called Army of Thieves that same year. However, it’s safe to say that far more moviegoers are already pre-invested in seeing the story of the Smokestack Twins than they ever were to return to the world Army of the Dead, so it’s definitely something for Coogler and co. to consider.
For his part, Michael B. Jordan has already let it be known that he would be game to once again pull double-duty and play Smoke and Stack in a gangland prequel. “I’ll be up for it,” Jordan told Total Film, adding, “Not saying [director Ryan Coogler] wouldn’t, but I’m just saying, I would be up for it. He calls the shots.”
That idea seems more interesting than any vampire-centric sequel idea that would follow Stack and his girl Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) making their way through the decades as vampires. And, not for nothing, but a period crime drama mixing race, greed, violence, (a little mysticism), and the bent worlds of law enforcement and politics into one strange brew seems like exactly the kind of film we need from Ryan Coogler next.
Other fans have expressed more indirect spinoff concepts, like a prequel that explores how Remmick (Jack O’Connell) became a vampire; a film exploring the Choctaw Tribe and their battles against vampires; or an indirect spinoff that tracks the magical origins of Annie’s (Wunmi Mosaku) ancestors. More radical ideas include some kind of modern-day spinoff that’s connected to the original via that now-iconic musical sequence.
Sinners stars Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O’Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller, and Delroy Lindo — it is now streaming on HBO Max and will be available on digital, 4K, Blu-ray and DVD as of July 8th.
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Image courtesy of Lucasfilm.
