Director Paul Feig is adamant that moviegoers will still get to see A Simple Favor 2, the sequel to his Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively-led 2018 film, sometime this year. The movie’s status was briefly thrown into question on Friday when a user named Eric B. posted an X thread claiming that behind-the-scenes tensions between Kendrick and Lively, as well as the latter’s alleged refusal to promote it amidst her ongoing lawsuit against her It Ends With Us director and co-star Justin Baldoni, had forced Amazon to shelve A Simple Favor 2 indefinitely.
Feig used his X account to respond to the claims on Friday, writing, “This is total BS. Sorry. The movie is finished and coming out soon. Don’t believe anything you read on social media these days.” When the X thread’s creator responded to Feig by asking why Amazon hasn’t set a release date or made any promotional plans yet “for a film that wrapped in April 2024,” the director wrote back, “My friend, it’s called post-production, which generally takes over half a year at least.”
“Our post schedule always had us finishing everything by mid-January,” Feig continued. “Movies don’t come out the second they’re finished because the studio spends the previous year deciding the best date to release it. We’ve always planned on something in the spring/summer of this year. That’s how movies work. I hope this helps.”
A Simple Favor received largely positive reviews when it hit theaters in September 2018. The film went on to gross nearly $100 million at the worldwide box office — far surpassing its reported $20 million budget. Despite its success, a sequel wasn’t announced until early 2022. Just a little less than seven years will, in fact, have passed between the two films if A Simple Favor 2 really is released — as Feig suggests — sometime in the spring or summer of this year. Feig directs the sequel, which has been co-written by Laeta Kalogridis and A Simple Favor writer Jessica Sharzer.
Kendrick and Lively, as well as co-stars Henry Golding, Andrew Rannells, Bashir Salahuddin, Joshua Satine, and Ian Ho, have all returned to reprise their roles from the first film in the sequel. The new movie’s plot remains shrouded in mystery, which means viewers will have to wait until it’s released to find out whether or not it is as twisty as its 2018 predecessor. Feig insists, however, that those same viewers shouldn’t worry in the meantime about the sequel’s fate.
In addition to disputing the aforementioned claims, the director also took the time on Friday to tease A Simple Favor 2 further, promising that it is “coming soon” and writing, “The movie is awesome, and Blake and Anna turn in amazing performances. I can’t wait for you all to see it.”
A Simple Favor is streaming now on Netflix. Its sequel does not yet have a set release date.
