For some time now, a sequel to the 2007 art house thriller Eastern Promises has been in various stages of development. A second outing has expressed more than interest from original director David Croenberg, stars Viggo Mortensen and Vincent Cassel and a script was written by original scribe Steven Knight (an Oscar nominee for the 2003 thriller Dirty Pretty Things). Yet, the project seemed all but dead a few years when Focus Features seemingly pulled it altogether. Might it be back on track?
Maybe so, yet we should enter with caution. Casting site My Entertainment World listed Body Cross (aka Eastern Promises 2) as starting production in early spring, with filming scheduled to commence in London. It even came with a synopsis attached, perhaps fueling promise:
Picking up where the 2007 film left off with the incompetent underboss Kirill thinking that he and his henchman driver Nikolai really have inherited the throne from his crime-lord father, without knowing that Nikolai is actually a clandestine agent working undercover in Russia’s federal security service.
Could potentially more naked sauna fighting be on way? It’s important to note that My Entertainment World has been wrong before – as when incorrectly forecasting that Avatar 2 would begin production in April 2016 – yet this tip offers at least a semblance of hope that the project hasn’t been completely shelved.
The original 2007 thriller – an art-house hit domestically and abroad (Eastern Promises earned $17 million in North America and $38 million overseas) – has gathered a respectable following in the years (naked sauna fighting is a rare cinematic offering) and considerable critical acclaim. Mortensen, in particular, was a chief beneficiary as he earned Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for his performance.
Since Eastern Promises, director Croenberg and Mortensen reunited for third time with the provocative Sigmund Freud bio A Dangerous Method (a film that also starred Michael Fassbender and Keira Knightley). The director also made Cosmopolis and Maps to the Stars (a film that earned Julianne Moore Best Actress prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival as well as Golden Globe nomination) since. Knight has since both written and directed the Tom Hardy one-man-show Locke and scripted the Bradley Cooper Burnt and the recent Allied. Mortensen is recently coming off raves from the summer indie Captain Fantastic, a role that may well earn the actor his second Oscar nomination.
We will stay tuned to the latest detailed involving an Eastern Promises sequel.
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