Director Renny Harlin will be heading up the next films for “The Strangers” franchise. But he is teasing that there may be more installments than just the planned trilogy.
The Universe is based on the 2008 film “The Strangers” directed by Bryan Bertino, starring Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman. This psychological horror film revolves around a couple being terrorized by three masked criminals. Its 2018 sequel, “The Strangers: Prey at Night” directed by Johannes Roberts, followed a similar plotline. While the followup didn’t do as well as the first film, it did show how adaptable the story could be.
Now, Harlin is taking over for three new films that will all come out sometime in 2024. Starting with “The Strangers: Chapter 1” starring Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez. But, according to a recent interview, there could be even more films on the way.
“I definitely see more movies and it’s almost like – that’s why I don’t even call it a trilogy – I call it the first three movies of the Strangers Universe,” Harlin told ComicBook. “And the way the third movie ends, if people thought that the original movie ended in a titillating way because Liv Tyler sort of gasps in the end of that. And you question, like, ‘Did she live, what happened?’ If you thought that was thought-provoking, I think that when the third movie ends, you are like, ‘Oh my God, what’s, what’s gonna happen now?’”
“Because this is really an exploration of a young woman who’s been the victim of incredible violence and an exploration of what happens to a person mentally and physically,” Harlin added. “How do you survive it? Where do you go? And in the end of the third movie, you have more questions than answers and I definitely see a bunch of new movies coming after that, and just continuing her story. So instead of going the route of the original film and the sequel of it, the sequel was about the strangers attacking some other random people. Our focus is our central character and her journey and where she’s gonna go.”
There is no firm release date for “The Strangers: Chapter 1,” yet. We’ll keep you posted on updates about the project as they become available. You can check out a new clip from the upcoming film below:
