Max Landis Says ‘American Ultra 2’ Would Be a Kristen Stewart Action Movie

Despite being a fun, original action movie and what some are actually calling the best on-screen romance of the year, American Ultra didn’t exactly light it up at the box office this weekend. Its weak sixth-place finish and $ 5.5 million probably won’t get it a sequel (unless the international box office smokes the competition), but that doesn’t mean writer Max Landis isn’t already thinking about the further adventures of pot-heads-turned-assassins Mike (Jesse Eisenberg) and Phoebe (Kristen Stewart).

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Landis — who coins himself “an idea machine” — dishes on his ideas for sequels to both American Ultra and the movie that helped launch his big-screen writing career, Chronicle.

As for American Ultra, Landis says the sequel would separate Mike and Phoebe when someone reprograms Mike to be a bad guy, essentially turning Stewart’s character into the film’s lead hero. 

“It went more into why Phoebe would give up her life (for Eisenberg’s character Mike), he told The Daily Beast. “American Ultra might not make enough money for a sequel, but the sequelis a Kristen Stewart action movie. Mike at the very beginning gets taken away and hypnotized, reprogrammed, by a bad guy—so Jesse and Kristen are apart the whole movie. It’s Kristen against everyone. But that’s a dream. And I’ve learned my lesson after Chronicle. These worlds are so big in my head. These characters are so real, and I can tell you anything about them. And then something doesn’t make enough money.”

Those projects that don’t make enough money to warrant sequels but have tons of fan support usually find their way to comics, or — knowing Landis — he’ll throw an entire American Ultra 2 script online just for those fans who want to see what happens next. So hang tight on AU2 — we could see Landis putting something out there if there’s enough people calling for it.

Before the outspoken, social-savvy writer had a beef with Fox, he was working on a couple of sequel ideas for Chronicle, too. He talks about both of those in detail in the piece — with one being a time-bending follow-up in which the stars of the first movie go on the run from government forces and fool around with the power to manipulate time. Another more interesting take has them squaring off against a female supervillain called Miranda. “It’s one of my better scripts,” he says. “It’s very dark. It’s not Chronicle. It has a much happier ending than Chronicle!”

Playing off the fact that he’s an “idea machine” — previously Landis has shared pages and ideas for everything from Ghostbusters to Fantastic Four movies — he also teased his idea for a final Lethal Weapon movie.

This time speaking to Grantland, he says his Lethal Weapon would play out like a slasher movie. No, seriously. Read his pitch below:

“The final Lethal Weapon, if I have to pocket-pitch it right now, is Murtaugh and Riggs are asked to work with a group of, like, four cops who are younger, who were all involved in an action movie that we didn’t see. You hear the report, and it sounds like a Lethal Weapon movie: ‘They drove a school bus off of an oil rig?’ Then Murtaugh and Riggs are assigned to take them on like an Outward Bound program and try to teach them to be better cops and respect authority. Then it turns out the villain from the action movies that we missed is coming to kill them. Murtaugh and Riggs in the woods for the first time in any of the movies, with four characters we really like, do a slasher movie.”

Heck, we’d watch the hell out of that.

Who knows if any of these ideas will ever make it to the big screen, but you gotta love Landis’ enthusiasm. He believes hard in the projects he works on, and regardless of what you think of his online persona, the guy is a sharp writer and thinker — and, yeah, he knows his movies.

Personally, we want to see more of those movies from him, beginning with Victor Frankenstein, due out on November 25. To get a glimpse at what Landis is cooking up next, watch the trailer below.