Back in February it was announced that writer-director Christian Gudegast would be reuniting with Gerard Butler, Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson and O’Shea Jackson Jr. for a sequel to this year’s heist thriller Den of Thieves.
During an interview with Screen Rant, the filmmaker has been chatting about the plans for the follow-up, which will take inspiration from the 2003 Antwerp diamond heist and focus on Nick’s (Butler) pursuit of Donnie (Jackson).
“Every studio wants a little mini-franchise if possible. Thankfully, thank god, we’re all very fortunate that it did very well and now we’re going to do a sequel which is great. But that initially the plan. That’s just something that sort of you know as we were making it and we were feeling that the twist was working, and it setting up well for a sequel – if it performed, that we would do one. And it performed so, the sequel will be something that I have researched for years and years.
“I’m adapting a different story to make it a sequel about the Pink Panther mafia and the diamond thieves from Europe. It’s all going to be set in Europe. And it’s going be about Big Nick hunting Donnie, who’s involved in a diamond heist and he’s teamed up with the former Pink Panther mafia, and it’s about Nick hunting him along with… Nick is also going to be hunted by another group, I won’t reveal right now. It’s gonna, there’ll be a few different kinds of twist in this one. It’ll be hopefully very surprising.”
Den of Thieves is set for its home entertainment release later this month. You can read our review of the film here.
DEN OF THIEVES is a gritty Los Angeles crime saga which follows the intersecting and often personally connected lives of an elite unit of the LA County Sheriff’s Dept. and the state’s most successful bank robbery crew as the outlaws plan a seemingly impossible heist on the Federal Reserve Bank of downtown Los Angeles.