If 2013 taught us anything about movies, it’s that if you’re going to make the same exact movie as someone else, for pete’s sake make sure yours comes out first. The epic, nauseatingly bloodthirsty battle for supremacy between Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down, both of which depicted terrorists destroying Washington in ridiculous and explosive ways, ended the summer with fictional Secret Service agent/President duo Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart defeating their counterparts, Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx. Was Olympus better? God, no. But it benefited from being released four months earlier, and was cheaper to make (and therefore much more profitable).
Olympus has also bested White House Down in the race to sequeldom. News broke yesterday that Butler, Eckhart, and their costars Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, and Radha Mitchell will return for London Has Fallen, a movie that sees Eckhart’s President traveling across the pond to attend the funeral of the British prime minister. It’s scheduled to begin shooting in London in May; no word yet whether Melissa Leo will reprise her role as a courageous but intense Secretary of Defense, or whether anyone will get stabbed in the brain with a ballpoint pen again. Also no word on whether director Antoine Fuqua will helm the sequel, but when we interviewed him back in March he mentioned that he loved London and spent time living in Camden, so you heard it here first, folks.
Will Chan the Man and Foxx team up for a White House Down sequel set in Paris, or will the former stripper be content to keep working on his reality show about burlesque bars in New Orleans? Whatever happens, we will keep you posted.
