Update: Ruby Modine (above, right) will reprise her role as Lori Spenger in Happy Death Day 2, according to Variety. Her character, a nursing student, was the roommate of the lead character, played by Jessica Rothe, in the original. Modine first gained attention from a supporting role on Showtime's Shameless series.
(Our previously-published post is below, with more details.)
Cleverly taking the premise of Groundhog Day and applying it to the horror genre, Happy Death Day is a pleasant little slasher film. But it mostly works because actress Jessica Rothe is so appealing in the lead role as a college student who keeps getting killed on her birthday, only to wake up the same morning over and over.
Happy Death Day received mostly positive reviews (71% on Rotten Tomatoes) and wound up with an impressive $123 million gross worldwide. Naturally, Blumhouse and Universal are making a sequel, and Happy Death Day 2 is now set to begin shooting on May 10. According to Deadline, Rothe is returning alongside some newly cast co-stars.
Find out more on that and everything else we know about the follow-up below.
Who all is back for the sequel?
Jessica Rothe is back as Tree, the college student who repeated the same day (her birthday) over and over until she solved her own murder. Israel Broussard is also returning as Carter, the guy she kept waking up with who helped her out with her strange case. Director Christopher Landon is returning to helm the sequel too.
What about screenwriter Scott Lobdell?
Lobdell does not appear to be involved with the sequel. Landon, who has written plenty of horror scripts in the past, including Paranormal Activity sequels, but who didn't work on the script for Happy Death Day, appears to have written the screenplay for Happy Death Day 2 himself.
Who is joining the cast for the sequel?
Deadline revealed two new actors coming aboard. Life of Pi star Suraj Sharma and TV actress Sarah Yarkin (American Horror Story) will both play science geeks. The former, whose name is Samar, is also a coder; the latter, Dre, is a tomboy "with a sleepy feline gaze."
What is the plot this time?
While it's unclear if Happy Death Day 2 will again follow the Groundhog Day structure, Deadline revealed that the sequel will pick up "Back to the Future Part II style" immediately after the ending of the original movie. The plot will also deal with some of the questions about Tree's time loop. Presumably Samar and Dre will use their science geekery to provide answers.
Will there be another killer?
We imagine there will also be a new killer this time around -- or somehow the slasher from the first movie will return -- since this is a horror movie, after all. Or is it? In an interview with Collider, Rothe hinted at a genre change:
Chris has done this incredible thing where the sequel, the way he described it to me, elevates the movie from being a horror movie – and I wouldn’t even say it’s just a horror movie because it’s a horror, comedy, rom-com drama – into a Back to the Future type of genre film where the sequel joins us right from where we left off, it explains a lot of things in the first one that didn’t get explained, and it elevates everything.
When can we see Happy Death Day 2?
Universal hasn't set a release date yet, but the expectation is for the sequel to open in 2019.
