Joe Cornish has opened up about potential follow-ups to his film, admitting that he has plenty of ideas for sequels to The Kid Who Would Be King and Attack The Block.
“You always have so much time with the actors,” Cornish tells Metro. “So between shots you always wonder what a sequel would be. Me and John Boyega have loads of ideas for an Attack The Block sequel.”
“I have loads of ideas for [The Kid Who Would Be King]. But the idea is to make this film stand alone and then if I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to make another, I would do it in a shot.”
Will there be a sequel to The Kid Who Would Be King?
So how often has Cornish and Boyega discussed a follow-up to 2011’s sci-fi comedy horror Attack The Block? And is there anything concrete about when a potential sequel might be released?
“It’s something we talk about when we get together but nothing is firm. I think we both get excited when we talk about it. But I think the nice idea about that is that you could come back to that idea at any point, and in some ways the longer you left it, the better it would be, to finally find out what happened to all those characters.”
Unfortunately for Cornish, though, his ideas for The Kid Who Would Be King are likely to remain unrealized. That’s because his modernization of the legend of King Arthur has flopped at the box office, taking in around $7 million over its opening weekend, despite having cost $60 million to make.
Cornish can look at this poor box office return as a minor blip, though. Not only did the film have strong reviews, but the other films he has been involved in, from Attack The Block to writing Ant-Man and The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn, have all previously thrived.
But what about the long touted sequel to Tintin? Does Cornish have an update on that blockbuster?
“I’ve no idea. I don’t know,” he insists. “I would be flattered to be involved. But I don’t know. I know they worked, Peter worked on a script. But that’s in the hands of much more powerful people than me.”
“I do love that movie though, and I can only claim responsibility for a fraction of it. But I think it’s a really great Spielberg adventure movie. I’m very proud to have my name on it.”
Why did it take Cornish so long to write and direct his second film? As there was a seven year gap between 2011’s Attack The Block and The Kid Who Would Be King.
“It was a little bit like so many doors opening that I didn’t know which one to go through,” he explains. “There were so many different possibilities. ‘Do you want to direct this giant movie? Do you want to work this movie? Do you want to develop this one?’ Which was very exciting and flattering but my compass was just spinning around.”
“I took refuge in, and I did attach myself to a couple of things, but I took refuge in Ant Man with Edgar. So yeah, I think if I’ve learned anything, it’s to pick something and stick to it.”
Cornish admits that he also backed out of projects once he realized people that he thought could “do as good or a better job” than him were linked with them.
“With Star Trek I thought, ‘Well I’m not sure I could bring anything that somebody might not be better at.’ And the last thing you want to do is to get involved in a production as massive and expensive and important as that if you don’t feel like you can really make a difference.”
“But I always get seduced because it’s incredibly flattering to be asked and who wouldn’t want to take the meeting and like think about it and stuff. Sometimes it can be emotionally draining though and you just look at your watch and see years go by and think. ‘Aw sh**. I just lost focus now.”
Cornish is hopeful his follow-up to The Kid Who Would Be King won’t take quite as long to make, as he admits, “I’ve done my best to have a couple of things further progressed. I’ve got one screenplay I really want to do and so I think I’ll get on to that fairly quickly if I’m lucky enough.”
