Sequels are big business in Hollywood, and the people in charge at different studios are usually down to revisit a hit if the follow-up has a chance of doing better than its predecessor. The smaller budget titles stand an even better chance of getting a second outing after overachieving because the initial investment is lower, which means with just a little more money thrown in, the possibility of truly wild success is on the table. Bob Odenkirk ended up stumbling into a modest success with "Nobody"
back in 2021 as the action movie was a "little engine that could" for Universal Pictures. Thanks to the success built off of a $16 million budget, the calls for a sequel were coming, but Odenkirk would only sign on for "Nobody 2" if they found the right story to tell.
"Nobody" is the story of Hutch Mansell (Odenkirk), a man with a shady past as an assassin who has given up that life for a dreary domestic existence, until the underworld pulls him back into his violent ways to protect his family. Director Ilya Naishuller managed to wring every cent out of that $16 million budget, and the movie would go on to make $57 million during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Once the offer to make another "Nobody" came through, it would have been easy for Odenkirk to sign on for another entry that simply made the gunfights cooler and reunited him with his co-stars. But, the actor told The Hollywood Reporter that he wanted to make sure they were after the right things with the sequel.
"We played around with different stories for 'Nobody 2,' and it was hard to find a story that felt right," Odenkirk revealed. "I kept asking myself, 'What is the real reason people liked the first one so much? What is it?' And I didn't mean the obvious stuff like the fights being good and a little more visceral than what you're used to seeing."
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Nobody 2 Star Bob Odenkirk Wanted To Make Sure They Were Making The Sequel For The Right Reasons
With ideas swirling around in their heads, Bob Odenkirk and writer Derek Kolstad got to work digging through the first movie to find the kernel that would connect "Nobody" to a future installment. It would have been so easy to lock in on the highly praised action scenes, including one showstopper on a city bus, and find ways to ratchet up the gunplay and the violence before patting themselves on the back for a job well done, but Odenkirk zeroed in on the family dynamic that provides a lot of the drama in the first "Nobody" and pushed that idea to the forefront. Look no further than the family vacation trappings of "Nobody 2" for evidence that their idea was probably the right way to go.
"There was a lot of back and forth and a lot of outlines and even a lot of screenplays," the star shared with THR. "[Co-screenwriter] Derek Kolstad and I talked all the way through it, and then all of a sudden, Universal was like, 'Okay, we're going to make it.' And we were actually like, 'Well, we haven't got the script figured out completely.' We definitely had the bones of what you see now, but it wasn't like, 'Ah, now it's done. Can you please make it?' I didn't feel that way. So we had to get to work and really focus on it, and then we arrived at a script that I thought was good."
Having that script locked in and ready to go was paramount for this creative team, as one easy way to assure the movie is operating at its absolute best, and things stay on budget, is to have that story down pat before anything else moves forward. It sounds really simple, but Odenkirk essentially telling the studio not to put the cart before the horse helped "Nobody 2" feel fully fleshed out before they shot a second of it.
There's A Surprising Hook In Nobody 2
All of this doesn't discount the ways that "Nobody 2" plays to the strengths of the first film, as some of the theme park set pieces in the sequel are nothing short of delightful in motion. But, as action movies continue to lean into this meat and potatoes approach that we've seen in the wake of the "John Wick" franchise, it was going to take more than cool stunts and gun fights to capture an audience again. Zeroing in on what that kind of violence does to a man who really wants to love his family is a smart play, and one that might leave some of the audience thinking about more than how that one henchman got absolutely wrecked on a fairground.
If this movie does as well as "Nobody" did, maybe it might trigger some reflection from corners of film discourse about the importance of a thoughtful follow-up picture. (We've had a couple of those already this year! And, most of them have been enjoyable for what they are.) Odenkirk and Kolstad basically did what every writing teacher tells a screenwriting hopeful to do when they're sitting down to make their own story the first time around, and that feels fitting for a very workman-like set of movies. Hopefully, we get to see some other projects take a step back and put their best foot forward; it might lead to more crowd-pleasers down the line.
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
