Fox is very confident that its upcoming Melissa McCarthy-Sandra Bullock buddy cop comedy The Heat will be a hit – so confident, in fact, that they’ve already started work on a sequel. Deadline reports that the studio has made “a pricey deal” with Katie Dippold, who scripted the first movie and previously wrote for Parks and Rec, to write a sequel. While it’s a little crazy for the studio to be putting money and time into a sequel to a movie that doesn’t come out until the summer, this kind of practice is fairly common in Hollywood. Jonah Hill and Michael Bacall were hired to write a 21 Jump Street sequel before the movie was released and became a hit, while Mike Myers and his agent were meeting with Paramount about Love Guru sequels a full year before that movie became a flop.
It does make sense to get started on a sequel early – as long as The Heat ends up with box office returns closer to 21 Jump Street than The Love Guru. Fox is extremely confident in the movie, as evidenced by the studio striking exclusive deals with director Paul Feig and with writer Katie Dippold and moving the release to the competitive summer movie season, where they’re expecting it to make a ton of money and compete with high-profile sequels, reboots, and remakes.
Here’s the trailer for the first movie in the The Heat franchise, due out June 28th:
