Will 'Project Power' Get a Sequel on Netflix?
WARNING: Spoilers ahead.
On the heels of Extraction and The Old Guard, Netflix has expanded its original, big-budget fare with Project Power, an action film imagining a world where mere mortals take pills that give them superpowers for just five minutes. The New Orleans–set flick stars Dominique Fishback as Robin, a high schooler selling the drug to provide for her diabetic single mother; Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Frank, Robin's police associate who tracks people using the pills but also takes them himself; and Jamie Foxx as Art, a former test patient for the substance combating the whole operation to find his missing daughter.
The film just arrived on the streamer Friday, August 14, but there's already speculation over whether the story will continue. Here's what we know so far.
The directors are waiting to see if fans want a sequel.
Project Power has not yet been confirmed for a sequel, and its directors, Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost (Catfish, Paranormal Activity 3, Nerve), didn't want to assume that it would get one. However, they're waiting to see how fans react.
"Well if you start a Reddit chat thread, maybe you can get the demand going," Schulman told Yahoo UK of a possible sequel. "But I don't think we would ever presume that something should have a sequel until the fans ask for it."
Surely enough, the Reddit discussions have already begun.
There are many more powers to be explored.
Many of the superhuman abilities triggered by the "power" pills are based on animals, such as regenerative qualities, joints that bend both ways, or bones that protrude from the skin to be used as weapons. But the film's powers also go beyond the animal kingdom: Gordon-Levitt's Frank has bulletproof skin, Machine Gun Kelly's Newt can set himself on fire, and Foxx's Art basically has bomb-like abilities. The catch? One doesn't know what kind of power they will manifest upon taking the drug. In some instances, popping the pill can be fatal, as a few unlucky users are said to have exploded after swallowing the capsule.
Schulman and Joost said there were many more superpowers that didn't make the final cut. "There's a version of this movie that has, like, twice as many powers," Schulman also told Yahoo. Joost added, "We have a massive list of powers, and their corresponding animals."
However, they scaled that back to "[allow] more room for the dramatic scenes," Schulman explained. "And that's the heart of the movie for us—the relationship between Robin and Art.”
The story of Power can fit into various genres.
Screenwriter Mattson Tomlin is hoping for a sequel, per Forbes, as he originally pitched the film to Netflix as "a way to Rubik's Cube so many different genres."
"You could do a Power film as a horror movie or as a sci-fi movie or a coming-of-age movie," he explained. "You can keep mixing and matching in really exciting ways; take Friday the 13th and then put superpowers in the middle of it. I think that there's really, really cool possibilities and I hope we get to make some of them come true."
The directors also think there are ways to further explore the film.
"We wanted to design it as a fully enclosed, satisfying, entertaining story. I think that there are definitely many more directions the story could go, and the concept is so much fun, and you could imagine it," Joost told Digital Spy.
"And we did have thoughts about it going in other directions, but I wouldn't want to jinx it. We just want to see how the audience feels first."
Some questions remain unanswered.
Project Power ends with Robin, Frank, and Art saving Art's daughter, Tracy, and taking down the operatives who held her captive. The father-daughter duo hit the road together before the credits roll, leaving Frank and Robin behind. Frank plans to expose his police chief for his knowledge of and associations with the drug tests on New Orleans citizens, but we don't see that happen. What does that look like? Will the tests expand to other cities (or countries)? And does Robin eventually get to find out her own powers?
Watch Project Power on Netflix
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