Anna Daniels
Sam Hargrave, Joe Russo tease Extraction future
After receiving generally positive reviews from critics and garnering the biggest opening viewership for a Netflix original film, it appears writer Joe Russo (Avengers: Endgame) and director Sam Hargrave have future plans for the Chris Hemsworth-led actioner Extraction.
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In an interview with Collider, Hargrave discussed possible follow-ups for the film include ideas for both a prequel and sequel, with the former developing on the relationship between Hemsworth’s Tyler Rake and his friend and ally Gaspar (David Harbour, Stranger Things), which he says is “so interesting” and that given the film’s “ambiguous ending,” there are multiple paths he and Russo could go.
“We discussed it and our backstory is that those two guys is these guys trained together and they spent a lot of time together in the military and even outside of that, in private military sector, and their skills would be matched but they just went different directions,” Hargrave explained. “Harbour [‘s character] went native, you might say. He found a life in Bangladesh and stayed there and Rake kept going down the other path. But their skillset, if you matched them up, they’re kind of evenly matched. So to make up for the fact that Rake has been doing [this work] consistently and Harbour has not, we made sure that Chris had enough damage, if he was beaten down enough, we’d believe that Harbour had the skills to take him down.”
Despite his excitement about the prospect of future films and ideas about it, he does note that it wasn’t initially “something discussed on set” between himself, Russo and Hemsworth but that once Netflix “was enjoying the dailies,” it became something explored.
“People were like, ‘Oh, this could be…,” Hargrave said. “You know, you talk about all of these things. Is it a franchise? Is it all these things? Who knows until the movie comes out and the audience responds. They’ll be the ones who decide. But it was talked about, as soon as it was, Joe brought up an interesting point that most of the time, you get a sequel. Rarely do you go back in time into prequels. You get the sense that Chris and Harbour have a great chemistry, so we thought that was a very interesting way — if you go backwards in time — that you could play with the prequel to a story like this.
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Russo also enjoyed the chemistry between his Avengers vet and the Black Widow star, and believe that a prequel focused on them “is a great idea,” noting that “it would be interesting.”
“Netflix was very happy with the film and very supportive of it,” Russo said. “They’ve been phenomenal to work with. Certainly, when you find an interesting character and an interesting world to explore with a great director, you’re going to want to continue to explore it. My brother and I love franchise filmmaking, we love serialized storytelling. I just think you can do interesting things with characters as you progress their story. You’re limited by two hours, you can only say so much, it’s a very specific craft. When you expand the amount of time you put that character onscreen, you can make other choices with them. So, it would be exciting as hell to go back to work on a second film in that series. We’ve had the preliminary conversations. The question is: Does it all make sense? Can we find the right story to tell? Are we happy to go tell that? Does Sam want to tell that story? Does Chris want to tell that story? There’s still a lot of work to be done.”
Extraction (formerly titled as Dhaka) takes place in an underworld of weapons dealers and traffickers and follows a young boy who becomes the pawn in a war between notorious drug lords. After being trapped by kidnappers inside one of the world’s most impenetrable cities, his rescue beckons the unparalleled skill of a mercenary named Tyler Rake. But Rake is a broken man with nothing to lose, harboring a death wish that makes an already deadly mission near impossible.
The cast includes Chris Hemsworth (Thor: Ragnarok), David Harbour (Stranger Things, Black Widow), Derek Luke (13 Reasons Why), Fay Masterson (Vice), Golshifteh Farahani (Paterson) and newcomer Rudhraksh Jaiswal. The film is being produced by Netflix. Joe Russo has written the script while Sam Hargrave, known for his stunt work in multiple MCU movies as well as small roles in action films such as Atomic Blonde, will be making his directorial debut with the film.
Extraction is produced by Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo through their AGBO banner along with Hemsworth, Mike Larocca, and Eric Gitter.
Written by: CS
