What’s known so far about The Guest 2 is that the writer has the rather lofty ambition of not doing the same thing and expecting it to pay off, which isn’t too far out of bounds really when talking about a sequel, but isn’t always the most successful way to go. It’s easy to understand that no one wants to do the same thing over and over even if such a thing happens time and time again. But the goal this time is to show a bit of character development with David, as the first movie established that he’s a programmed killer that’s bound to go megaton the moment his cover is compromised. It sounds as though the sequel is meant to give the character a little more humanity though, perhaps to show that he’s not a straight-up killer and can actually change if he makes an attempt to do so. It’s easy to see where the story is meant to go and what the writer is attempting to do, but it feels almost like walking a tripwire suspended above a garbage-laden pool while the walls are closing in on each side. In other words, it doesn’t sound like a project that will be that easy to accomplish, but it is possible if one is keeping their attention forward and not worrying too much about what can or will happen if they falter. Getting distracted is costly after all, just ask the many people that have created sequels that have gone nowhere. In any case, here’s what the writer had to say about it via MovieWeb:
“I can give you a very concrete answer to that question, which is, we are doing something related to The Guest. And it is concretely happening, but it is not a feature film or a comic book, because I think that’s what people would expect us to do. And I think that’s the thing that no one actually wants us to do, because I think if we actually made a feature film version of The Guest 2, or realistically, the graphic novel version would just be a cheaper version of trying to achieve kind of the same thing narratively. I think that could only disappoint people at this juncture, because people have to remember that the same weird, quasi-original artistic sensibility that caused me to write The Guest in the first place would continue to guide me with a Guest sequel.”
Aside from the manner in which the ‘quasi-original artistic sensibility’ is mentioned, the writer isn’t wrong when it comes to wanting to avoid the disappointment that people tend to feel with sequels, but there’s also the realization that like it or not, someone will be displeased. There’s no getting around that, and another fact is that The Guest was a decent story and something that people did pay attention to for a while, but wasn’t exactly the biggest movie of 2014. Nor was it something that has really stood the test of time at this moment since asking a lot of people if they remembered The Guest might be met with blank stares. So without trying to insult the writer’s integrity or artistry, it might be best to tell a story and not worry too much about details that aren’t always so easy to control.
The fact is that the writer wants to come up with something that will show that David has moved on, that he’s entered a different stage of his life, and that he’s ready to move on and forget what he’s done, what happened to him, and likely a good chunk of his life. It’s not exactly an original idea to do this since similar stories have existed for quite a while. But it’s understandable to have the need and the desire to create something that would fit with the ending of the first story and yet not be the same type of story. The government could be sending someone else after David, but it could be in a different capacity and not meant to cause more damage by attempting to extract him. Instead, it could be an attempt to observe and record, and then perhaps come up with an actual strategy to extract or terminate him since it’s likely that even after so long, David might be just as sharp and able to sense when an attack is coming. There are a few different ways this story can go, to be honest, but finding the right one is bound to be a little difficult if the writer is seeking out something that’s truly original isn’t about to stifle his creative juices or guide them down the wrong pathway. The story is possible like many stories are possible, but the question is always if it will be worth the effort to the audience to enjoy it.
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