WANTED 2 Is Happening...

Timur Bekmambetov's 2008 action film Wanted, loosely based on the Mark Millar comic book miniseries of the the same name, is to finally get a sequel. The first film, about an office worker who discovers, and in time comes to work with, a secret order of assassins, starred James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, and Morgan Freeman and impressed at the box office, grossing over $340 million worldwide on a budget of $75 million worldwide. That's the kind of taking that usually signifies a quickly produced sequel but because of SPOILER ALERT - Angelina Jolie's character demise at the end of the original (and her refusal to see her character resurrected after her bullet in the head in what no doubt would be an idiotic narrative fix just to get her in the cast), Universal were reluctant to put money into another roll of the dice as Jolie was front and center of all ad campaigns and in their belief, was why the original was so successful. But with the studio desperately in need of some sure fire hits, they are banking four or five years later (by the time the follow-up is released) that Jolie wasn't the only selling point of the film. The Wrap reported that last night that Universal has hired Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, writers of the original, to pen a sequel. Haas said, €œWe just always loved the 'Wanted' world and loved working with Universal and Timur on the first one, so we're excited.€ He added that the film will take place after the events of the first one and will "Pick up Wesley (James McAvoy) a few years later and go back in for another round." McAvoy must return because he was contracted to sequels but there is no word on whether the original director or the rest of the cast will be back just yet. One thing we can count on is a new bad-ass female to take over Jolie's place. How about Zoe Saldana?