The top-charting movie on Netflix this past week shocked cinema fans, and we’re happy to see it. The underrated and underseen 2018 mystery drama A Simple Favor was never given its fair shake critically, yet managed to win a cult following and a reappraisal fairly short thereafter. Fans are now excited to discover that the new sequel, which has kept fairly quiet in recent weeks, has finished shooting.
Paul Feig, the man behind the lens, is not generally seen as a creator of genre films. However, he has crafted some of the biggest, most successful big-budget comedies of the past few decades, including Bridesmaids, Spy, and Ghostbusters. I remember people finding the presentation tagline “From the darker side of Paul Feig” quite funny. But we weren’t so sure if the movie was in on the joke.
A Simple Favor also features an underdog ensemble, with Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick taking on its lead roles. Lively once again proves that she has the skill to carry a thriller on her shoulders, having proved many people wrong with her engaging solo turn in the excellent shark flick The Shallows.
A Simple Favor 2 will see Lively and Kendrick reprise their respective roles in a film that, according to People, features the “return of Stephanie Smothers (Kendrick) and Emily Nelson (Lively) as they head to the beautiful island of Capri, Italy, for Emily’s extravagant wedding to a rich Italian businessman.”
This week, A Simple Favor 2 made headlines when fans discovered the new thriller had already wrapped filming. Variety caught up with director Paul Feig once the word got out that the first film had toppled the Netflix streaming charts.
“I’m thrilled,” shared the Bridesmaids director. “It makes me so happy because this really is one of my favorite movies. It’s done well in the theaters, but I always feel so many people haven’t seen it yet so now they do get to see it … I just loved these characters and always felt we can revisit them.”
The original film, A Simple Favor, is based on Darcey Bell’s novel of the same name. Bell’s first novel, released in 2017, earned comparisons to other prominent contemporary crime thrillers, such as The Girl On The Train and Gone Girl.
A Simple Favor is streaming now on Netflix.
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