That ‘Eastern Promises’ Sequel We’re Clamoring For May Be Happening After All

There are the sequels that the public demands, usually framed up in the final scene of their preceding installment, often by an eyepatch-clad Samuel L. Jackson. There are the sequels that are foisted upon us — who could have asked for The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature, which is a very real film? But the greatest sequel of all is the sequel we never even knew we wanted, your Magic Mike XXLs, your Mad Max: Fury Roads. So while it’s doubtful that legions of David Cronenberg superfans were demanding a follow-up to his 2007 gangster drama Eastern Promises, that may be what we’re getting anyway, and aren‘t we all the better for it?

/Film notes that casting site My Entertainment World has listed a call for Body Cross with a start date in March, understood to be the Eastern Promises sequel once believed indefinitely postponed. The original film’s screenwriter Steven Knight (the mind behind Limey crime sagas Taboo and Peaky Blinders) has returned to pen the sequel, according to the web site, and My Entertainment World provides the following synopsis:

Picking up where the 2007 film left off with the incompetent underboss Kirill thinking that he and his henchman driver Nikolai really have inherited the throne from his crime-lord father, without knowing that Nikolai is actually a clandestine agent working undercover in Russia’s federal security service.

While the mentions of Nikolai and Kirill would suggest that Viggo Mortensen and Vincent Cassel will both return, the page makes no mention of Cronenberg, who last told the Playlist in 2012 that he was not involved with the sequel due to budgetary disputes with producer James Schamus at Focus Features. Whether they’ve squashed their beef and made amends or allowed the project to move forward without the filmmaker has yet to be seen, but if this is indeed for real, someone’s going to want the full story.