Sequel Bits: 'The Accountant', 'Alien', 'Jumanji', 'John Wick', 'Avatar', 'Bad Boys'

In this edition of Sequel Bits:

Remember The Accountant? That absolutely wacky movie with about ten different subplots, centered around Ben Affleck as an Autistic assassin? It was a surprise hit, and talk of a sequel surfaced soon after release. But we've yet to have anything official regarding The Accountant 2. But Ben Affleck still wants to make it happen. The actor told Collider he would "love to" make a sequel, and added: "In the second one, if we're ever fortunate to do it, I keep having this idea of a Catcher in the Rye kind of thing. He's surrounded by children, dealing with slavery and these kids that are sex slaves and things like that... If there's a way to deal with that subject matter and him saving children, that's something I'd be really interested in doing." I'm really not sure how that subject matter would go over, and I'd be much more content with just another goofy action film like the first Accountant.

I know many people did not care for Alien: Covenant, but I'm not one of them. I loved Ridley Scott's weird, gothic take on the Alien franchise, and would be happy to see him continue. There's been some debate on whether or not that might happen – Covenant wasn't exactly a smash-hit, and the Disney-Fox deal has made things murky. But according to a new report in Deadline, Scott is working on the next Alien film:

Ridley Scott's Scott Free seems also a good bet to stay: beyond the next Aliens installment that he's working on, Scott is expected to next direct Merlin, a live-action movie on the formative years of the wizard, for Disney.

"Working on" and "making" are, of course, two different things. So there's no telling if we'll ever see the next installment in Scott's Alien saga. But I certainly would be up for it should it happen.

Above you can see Karen Gillan and Dwayne Johnson on the set of Jumanji 3 (or whatever they're going to call it). There's not a whole lot to go on here, other than the fact that the characters will have new costumes, and it looks like Gillan's character is going to have a crush on Johnson's. We still don't know much about Jumanji 3, but Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was surprisingly fun, and audiences will likely flock to this sequel like this did the last one. The film opens December 13, 2019.

Dan Laustsen, the cinematographer who makes the John Wick movies look so cool, recently talked with Collider about John Wick: Chapter 3. The cinematographer spoke about shooting the many action scenes in the third entry in the series, and also offered some insight into the film itself:

"Well, you know, of course the accent is the same, but it's a new story. You're trying to change it a little bit and make it more powerful, and try to go into a new world. But of course, it's still John Wick. It's still Keanu and it's still Chad. We try to make it even better. That's what you should do on number 3. It should be better than number 2, and better than number 1. That's what we're trying to do."

John Wick: Chapter 3 opens May 17, 2019.

Those Avatar sequels are still adding cast members! The motion-capture work on James Cameron's multiple-film franchise has wrapped, but now the director is shooting live-action stuff, and adding some new faces in the process. According to Deadline, Brendan Cowell, who appeared as Harrag on Game of Thrones season 7, has joined the cast as "Mick Scoresby, captain of a private sector large-scale marine hunting vessel on Pandora." I gave up on Game of Thrones around season 3, so I'm not familiar with Cowell's work. But good for him!

Theresa Randle, who played Martin Lawrence's wife in Bad Boys and Bad Boys II, is coming back for Bad Boys 3, akaBad Boys For Life. She joins Lawrence, Will Smith, Vanessa Hudgens and more in a story that "centers on the Miami PD and its elite AMMO team's attempt to take down Armando Armas, head of a drug cartel. Armando is a cold-blooded killer with a vicious, taunting nature. He is committed to the work of the cartel and is dispatched by his mother to kill Mike Lowery." Bad Boys For Life arrives January 17, 2020.