Amazon MGM Studios is going back for superhero seconds.
The streamer is developing a sequel to Samaritan, its 2022 action movie starring Sylvester Stallone, and has hired Bragi F. Schut to pen the script. Schut also wrote the first movie.
Stallone is returning as producer, as is his Balboa Productions partner Braden Aftergood. Stallone is also reprising his starring role with a deal made prior to the actors strike.
Samaritan, directed by Julius Avery, told of a young boy who is saved from a beating by a sanitation worker. The boy comes to believe that the older man is a superhero who disappeared 20 years earlier, after an epic battle with his archenemies. The movie, which premiered exclusively on Prime Video on Aug. 26, 2022, in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide, overperformed for the company and was the No. 1 film on the service for three consecutive weeks, according to Amazon.
Schut wrote the first script on spec. It gathered interest from several production shops before being set up at Balboa and MGM. Schut will act as executive producer, along with Adam Rosenberg.
If the sequel to Samaritan does take off, it would mark the second original franchise for the scribe. Schut wrote the 2019 Sony thriller Escape Room, which also had a sequel.
Schut also was the original writer of The Last Voyage of the Demeter, which took a 20-year journey from spec script to the screen and was released by Universal this summer. The original horror thriller starred David Dastmalchian. He also worked on a Dungeons & Dragons television pilot for eOne and Hasbro.
Schut is repped by Verve, management firm Realm and attorney Rob Szymanski.
Read More: World News | Entertainment News | Celeb News
Hollywood
