It’s been talked about for several years now, but according to screenwriter Steven Knight (Taboo, Peaky Blinders), the long-promised sequel to David Cronenberg’s crime thriller Eastern Promises has a completed screenplay, and may well go into production before the end of the year.
“It is like fishing, where you leave it out there,” Knight tells Collider. “And it’s been out there for a while. It went through permutations in the sense of, how do you follow Viggo Mortensen? We’ve been through that and we’ve moved on and now we’re in a position where I will say ‘watch this space,’ we’re close to getting into production.”
Knight also went on to state that the screenplay has went through a number of changes lately to reflect real-world events, stating that: ““[The script] changed a bit. It changed quite recently as a result of events in the world. The topicality of the Russia thing. I’ve adapted it to reflect recent events.”
Neither Cronenberg or Mortensen will return for the sequel, but Knight revealed that a director is on board the project, and that it is “out to a couple of really good actors.”
Eastern Promises was released back in 2007, and saw Mortensen receiving an Oscar nomination for his role as Nikolai Luzhin, a “cleaner” for the Russian mob.
