It’s taken 421 days. A bunch of unofficial announcements. A disappointing bait and switch during a weeklong press event. A twitter and tumblr takeover.
Yesterday, at 10:15 AM PST, Netflix finally officially announced the sequel.
I’ll be honest, I really wasn’t expected to hear anything until next month, as just yesterday Netflix announced a three hour fan event called Tudum. I’d assumed we’d hear something at that point. After all, The Old Guard was listed on the official list twice. And since Charlize Theron was in the teaser video as well, I had hope.
But I guess the Powers That Be finally heard us, and they teamed up with Deadline to officially announce the sequel… and something else.
So, within all the hype of the announcement, it took us fans a moment to notice something about the tweet. We have a new director. Seriously, I don’t think anyone actually noticed for like ten minutes.
Gina Prince-Bythewood has stepped aside to let someone else helm the sequel.
Now, I’m not pissed about this. Prince-Bythewood did such an amazing job with adapting the source material. She advocated for so much, including the van speech and also to give Nile her voice in the film. She pushed so hard every step of the way, including making sure that the post production team was more than 80% female, which is basically unheard of in Hollywood. It looks like there was a scheduling conflict that caused her to have to step back as director, though she still remains as a producer.
Victoria Mahoney has signed on to direct the sequel.
Up until yesterday, I only knew of her because of her making Star Wars history when she was handpicked by J.J. Abrams to direct the second unit on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, making her the first woman to do so. She has directed episodes of some of the most popular and high profile shows on television, including Grey’s Anatomy and Lovecraft Country. But I’m okay with this. She seems to know her way around a camera, and how to direct for both the silver screen, and the small screen.
Prince-Bythewood seems to have been the one to handpick her replacement. Or, at least heavily recommend her.
And there’s this other thing. I’m not exactly worrying about this person taking over. A friend on Twitter happened to be looking back on some of her tweets (she’s friends with Ava DuVernay, so plus one) and discovered that she watched The Old Guard right after it premiered… and she got it. She got everything that the film was trying to say.
I think we’re in good hands.
On the flip side, we also got the news that the entire cast would be returning! I’m actually really excited about this. The cast has remained on friendly terms (at least from what we’ve seen from social media), and I’m hopeful that will continue.
The only real wonder any of us have right now is that we don’t exactly know when filming will start. The thing is, all of the cast is involved in multiple projects. Currently, production is scheduled to begin during the first quarter of 2022, which would make a realistic premier timeframe of winter 2022, or Spring 2023, depending on postproduction.
All in all, I’m very excited that finally, we have the confirmation from Netflix themselves that this is happening. And now the fans can cheer on the cast and crew every step of the way.
Until next time!
