Today Deadline.com confirmed that “Ride Along 2″ is in the works.
Tim Story will return as director and Ice Cube and Kevin Hart will reprise their roles. Since opening day, “Ride Along” has taken in more than $120M worldwide, so a sequel was inevitable. Will Packer and Cube’s Cube Vision are set to return as producers.
We spoke with Will at the “About Last Night” Junket, check out what he said about the success of “Ride Along.”
“Ride Along” was such a huge hit and it’s looks like this will be good business as well, how happy are you? Talk about what this year has been like for you and for Kevin?
Will Packer: Ecstatic! Look we all work so very hard in this business and try to put the best products out and we work really hard to promote them, but when it all comes together that’s amazing, because you can work really hard on a film and it not be received critically or commercially. When you have a film that comes together and works like a “Ride Along” you have to just embrace the moment. Because Kevin, he works so hard and as a producer I ask a lot of my talent. In pre-production, production, post-production, and then a lot in promotion. I always do that and Kevin is always right there ready to go, he has a tireless work ethic and the dynamic of him and the other people involved in “Ride Along” it really worked. And so what I’d like to see, well obviously Kevin’s star is rising, he’s officially a movie star. I think when you open a movie up the way that movie opened, new people found him that didn’t know him before and so I’m hopeful that those same people will then now find “About Last Night”, because it’s a very different film, but I’m so proud of this project. I think that if audiences really go in a find this film, it will pay them back and they’ll enjoy it.