TORONTO – Nearly a year ago, Paul Feig was on set filming his first film sequel in Italy while its original became the most watched movie on Netflix. The comedy crime thriller A Simple Favor (2018) starred Anna Kendrik and Blake Lively, as parents whose children attend the same school. Kendrik plays a single mother (Stephanie) with a parenting vlog who investigates Emily (played by Blake Lively), a PR Director for a Fashion Company. The simple favor: Emily asks Stephanie to watch her son for a night – but disappears and stages her own death.
After earning nearly $100 million at the box office in 2018, Feig is back with a sequel he didn’t want to make. Filming in Capri however might have been his ultimate motivation. The film’s plot centers around a wedding staged at the Grand Hotel Quisisana. In an entirely realistic twist of fate, Blake Lively’s character returns from prison after serving 20 years for double murder – and still finds someone to marry her.
The bride-to-be, a convicted murderer, asks another simple favor of Stephanie – the mother who helped put her away in the first film. To be her Maid of Honor, of course. Yes, there is an audience for this. And no, it’s not April 1st. Unsurprisingly Director Paul Feig had reservations about the sequel. “We threw out a whole script that was [originally] greenlit,” he explained to Hollywood Reporter in March. “I was reading the response from people who were so excited for a sequel, and I thought, this is not what they want”.
Feig and the writers tossed 70% of the script and rewrote the aforementioned, which is set for release next month. “I didn’t want to screw it up. So, I’m really happy about how it came out”, proclaimed Feig. Starring as the wealthy Italian businessman and groom is Italy’s statuesque heartthrob, Michele Morrone. The formula: throw every existing female-fiction trope into a blender and serve up a low-hanging fruit shake.
In truth, the joke’s on anyone who doubts that this film won’t attract a sizeable audience. To boot, Blake Lively scored a big PR win recently by being named a “Titan” on Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People list – a list that includes Donald Trump and Elon Musk. This, notwithstanding her ongoing legal battle with filmmaker Justin Baldoni, which hasn’t been great for the actress’ image – judging by the general public’s perception.
Amazon MGM Studios will release the sequel to Prime Video streaming platform on May 1st. In addition to Morrone, Lively and Kendrik the cast includes Andrew Rannells, Bashir Salahuddin, Elizabeth Perkins, Alex Newell, Henry Golding and Allison Janney.
(Images courtesy of MGM Studios)
Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix
