Is Charlize Theron's The Old Guard 2 Still Happening?

It's been just over four years since Gina Prince-Bythewood's action-packed film adaptation of Greg Rucka's "The Old Guard" comic was released on Netflix, and there have been rumblings about a potential sequel — and maybe even a third entry in the franchise — almost since the first movie debuted. That film, which was about a group of immortal warriors led by Charlize Theron, is one of the best Netflix original action movies the streamer has ever produced. That may sound like damning with faint praise, but I legitimately enjoyed the movie; it's a great showcase for Theron both physically and emotionally, Kiki Layne did a great job as the audience surrogate character, and the action is crisp and well-executed.

There was a flurry of updates about "The Old Guard 2" back in 2021 and 2022, but since then, there's been relative silence about the project, leading many to wonder if the sequel is even still happening at all. Here's the good news: Yes, it sounds like audiences will finally be able to watch "The Old Guard 2" soon. The bad news is that we still don't know exactly when the sequel will become available on the streaming service.

In the most technical terms, "The Old Guard 2" has actually already happened — we just haven't gotten the chance to see it yet. In 2021, we learned that the sequel had a finished script and a new director in the form of Victoria Mahoney, the first woman (and the first Black woman) to direct on a "Star Wars" movie when she worked as a second-unit director on J.J. Abrams' 2019 movie "The Rise of Skywalker." Production on "The Old Guard 2" began in the summer of 2022, with Prince-Bythewood producing this time, and it reportedly wrapped principal photography in September 2022. Since then, there have been precious few updates ... until very recently.

In an interview with Variety, star Charlize Theron explained that the movie was a victim of a corporate version of musical chairs that was playing out in Netflix boardrooms. "Netflix went through quite a changeover" in leadership around that time, Theron pointed out, and the film "got kind of stuck in that and our post-production shut down, I think, five weeks into it."

The actress went on to say that the company was "going through a lot of changes, and I totally understand it," but after a long delay, the filmmakers "finally picked it back up and I'm really excited about it." She promised audiences would get to see the movie "soon," although, again, it's not clear what that means in this context.

In that same interview with Variety, Theron said "The Old Guard 2" is "really good ... it's a really important film to us. I only wanted to do it if we could make it amazing. I really love this movie."

Back in February, Theron's co-star Matthias Schoenaerts described the shoot as "nice" in an interview with Collider, following that up by saying, "The people I work with there are friends of mine, so it's always nice to work with friends and to work with a great production team and lovely director, Victoria Mahoney. I'm very curious to see it, actually. I haven't seen anything yet, so I'm curious."

Looking ahead to a possible third "Old Guard" movie, Prince-Bythewood previously told /Film that the story "starts with Greg Rucka. He always envisioned this as a trilogy. I know where the story is going, and it's pretty great, but at the end of the day, it starts with an audience and what they want, and if they want more, there's absolutely more story to tell." Audiences showed enough interest to convince Netflix to get one sequel rolling. Time will tell if that interest transfers over to the second movie and convinces the powers that be to approve a third movie to wrap up the story.

Theron plays Andromache of Scythia, also known as Andy, a seemingly immortal warrior whose immortality started to be called into question in the first movie. Was that only a temporary blip, or is Andy now seriously in danger of actually dying for real? Because I have to imagine the latter scenario would impact her willingness to dive headfirst into a fight. But at least she'll have former CIA agent Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) helping to organize the team's missions.

The first movie also explicitly set us up for what could happen in the sequel. We learned that Quynh (Veronica Ngô), Andy's former romantic partner and a fellow immortal, spent literal centuries buried at the bottom of the ocean in a metal tomb, consigned to the horrific fate of drowning, dying, being resurrected, then immediately drowning again. (This is by far the most purposefully f***ed up thing about the movie, and one of the most disturbing concepts I've ever encountered in fiction.) At the end of the film, we learn Quynh has somehow been freed from this vicious cycle, and she introduces herself to Booker (Schoenaerts), who's been exiled from Andy's team of immortal warriors. It definitely seems like the two of them will team up to get revenge.

Writer Greg Rucka wrote a follow-up comic called "The Old Guard: Force Multiplied," which picks up after the events of the first story with the Quynh character (her name is Noriko in the comics) absolutely hating humanity after what she experienced for all of those years. Armed with that hatred, she sets out to make humanity suffer in a big way.

Most of the cast members from the original film are coming back to reprise their roles in the sequel. Charlize Theron is back as Andy; KiKi Layne is returning as Nile, the newest member of her team; and Marwan Kenzari and Luca Marinelli are coming back as Joe and Nicky, a couple who gave the first film a surprisingly romantic touch amid all of its action and bloodshed. Chiwetel Ejiofor is back as Booker, Matthias Schoenaerts is returning as the now-exiled Booker, and Veronica Ngô will have a much larger role this time around as Quynh.

Plus, in June of 2022, word came out that the great Uma Thurman ("Pulp Fiction," "Kill Bill") and the charming Henry Golding ("Crazy Rich Asians," "Snake Eyes") had been added to the cast, but their exact roles are still shrouded in mystery. Has anyone else been added to the mix in the two years since? Hopefully, it won't be long before we can finally find out by seeing the film for ourselves.