Talk to Me Director Offers Sequel Update (And Fans Won’t Be Happy)

Directors Danny and Michael Philippou are still planning on making a sequel to their 2022 smash hit Talk to Me, but it will be a few years. The duo spoke to reporters at a press screening last week, promoting their new movie Bring Her Back, which hits theaters in the U.S. on Friday, May 30th. They said that the sequel, Talk 2 Me, may not go into production until 2027 or even 2028. However, the brothers have plenty of other big projects for fans to enjoy in the meantime, and they told IndieWire that the delay is due in part to their perfectionist approach. They’re already considering two scripts for the movie, so it should be able to get going fast.

“A part of it is, I can’t decide which is the best avenue to take,” said Danny Philippou, who said he was already weighing two different scripts which follow two different characters and storylines. Dany also said that he plans to spend the rest of this year working on a mysterious new horror movie writer Bill Hinzman, though he did not reveal any details about it. Meanwhile, his brother Michael has blocked off the rest of the year for a documentary about “death match wrestling,” which he is filming in Mexico.

“So, I’d say 2025 — Bring her back, 2026 — the documentary, 2027 — [the new] horror, and then Talk to Me 2,” Michael summarized. “Maybe, I don’t know.” Danny cut in to joke, “So, when we’re like 50, we’ll do Talk to Me 2.”

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If this timeline sounds disappointing, it’s encouraging that at least the duo have been looking at scripts and carefully considering the direction for thsi hotly-anticipated sequel. It’s also worth noting that A24 already announced the sequel publicly, even giving it its cheeky title. However, the studio put the movie into “development,” so there’s still not much financial commitment there.

Talk to Me was a critical darling when it premiered back in 2022, and it was commercially successful though at a small scale compared to today’s inflated blockbuster standards. To horror fans, it felt like the perfect premise for a new ongoing franchise — the story is about a group of teenagers messing around with mystical forces beyond their control. They obtain a severed, embalmed hand that supposedly allows the person holding it to communicate with a deceased spirit by simply saying “Talk to me.”

This ritual gives the characters some ecstatic experiences, but inevitably, they take it too far. The story has a tragic, cyclical nature like horror franchises of the past, and it seemed to many fans like the modern horror boom might finally have a formula worth repeating and iterating on. At the same time, many of those same fans are excited to see the Philippou brothers branch out with Bring Her Back, which comes to theaters in the U.S. on Friday, May 30th.