by Jason Adams
Hey! Eyes down here! Thank you. Yesterday came news that the long-rumored sequel-of-sorts to David Cronenberg's 2007 film Eastern Promises was gaining some momentum... and that momentum was taking it straight towards the above-splayed abdominal muscles of one Jason Statham. Should we all be so lucky. And I think you can tell already that I'm hoping this film exists solely for a re-do of Viggo's balls-out sauna-brawl, just subbing in Jason, so we'll just go ahead and get that out of the way upfront. Say hello to our upfront business!
That aside and moving on, the sequel was written by the original's Steven Knight and is to be set in the same universe of bad-dude Russian mobsters, but it isn't supposed to follow up on any of that first film's characters (no Viggo, no Vincent Cassel, and no Naomi then) and David Cronenberg has no plans to return to the director's chair either. As of now Danish director Martin Zandvliet, whose 2015 film Land of Mine was nominated for Best Foreign Film, is attached.
Abs aside -- a large aside, I realize -- I think Statham somehow still remains underrated as an actor after all these years; I guess making the same movie fifty times, in between Fast and Furious sequels, will do that. And an Eastern Promises sequel would fit right in that wheelhouse -- it would not an enormous leap from the star of the Transporter films. And as good as Land of Mine was it was Cronenberg's forever-present weirdness that set EP out from the pack -- that is something that I don't know if Zandvliet has, that special weirdo quality. Truth told what it comes down to is I really just want Statham to co-star in a Spy sequel with Melissa McCarthy, and I'm putting all my energy into the world for that to happen. Until that happens everything else can suck it!
