'Crank' Director Wants A Crank Cinematic Universe

Forget superhero or Universal Monsters cinematic universes – how about a Crank cinematic universe, based around Jason Statham's unstoppable character Chev Chelios? That's what Crank co-director Brian Taylor wants, and honestly, that's not such a bad idea.

Will we ever get a Crank 3? Co-director Brian Taylor sure thinks so, but he's not settling for a simple sequel. He wants more, like a Crank cinematic universe. In Crank and Crank: High Voltage, Jason Statham's character Chev Chelios found himself in all sorts of bonkers situations: in the first film he was poisoned and had to keep running around injecting himself with adrenaline to survive, and in the sequel his heart was stolen and replaced with an indestructible robot heart. The movies were wild, and inspired a devoted cult following that has had folks clamoring for a third entry.

Appearing on the Movie Crypt Podcast (via JoBlo) Crank co-director Brian Taylor weighed-in on Crank 3, jokingly saying, "The prospects for Crank 3 would be much improved if the second movie had made more than $12 at the box office." The filmmaker then went on to to outline some concepts for Crank 3:

"My feeling about Crank 3 is that Crank 3 should be as exponentially more f—ed up than Crank 2 as Crank 2 was Crank 1. Obviously, there's been talk here and there but I've never really felt that creatively it was f—ed up enough to really do. Because the studio will get in contact with us: 'What do you guys think about this?' 'What do you guys think about that?' And the scenarios are always very tame compared to what I think it should be."

But that's not all: Taylor then went on to say that what he'd really like to see is a Crank cinematic universe:

"Obviously, there's a great movie there somewhere. I don't know if it's going to be Jason Statham in a wheelchair, 40 years from now. I think there should be a Crank cinematic universe. Not just one movie. So who knows? There's nothing in the works right now. But you never know. Me and [co-director] Mark [Neveldine] are brothers for life."

I have no idea what the hell a Crank cinematic universe would look like, but sure, why not? There are certainly worse ideas out there (I'm looking at you, Dark Universe). That said, I'd settle for a Crank 3 at this point, and I'm sure Neveldine and Taylor would as well. They've been offering updates on the project for years now. In 2015, Neveldine stressed that "everybody wants to do it", saying:

"We're definitely gonna do solo films. But we have an approved treatment for Crank 3 and we're super-excited about it. I know we've talked about it in the past, but we had lunch with Jason [Statham], we had lunch with Lakeshore. Everybody wants to do it, it's just now about all the stars aligning. Brian and I have a couple things that we'd really like to do as a team, and there are projects that really make sense that way. But also everybody thinks we're just one person. We're actually two guys with families and kids now, and we have things that we want to do solo and we're very supportive of each other doing that. But we want to do Crank 3."

Maybe all it would take to get Crank 3 and future Crank films made is the right amount of money. Anyone want to start a Kickstarter to fund the Crank cinematic universe?