Penn Badgley and Brittany Snow may not be returning for the John Tucker Must Die sequel, which is reportedly in the works.
During an episode of the You star‘s podcast, Podcrushed, the former co-stars revealed they haven’t been approached about reprising their roles for the second film.
“Penn, I don’t know if you’ve had a call, but I’ve gotten no call,” Snow said when asked if the reports of a sequel were true. Badgley replied, “Yeah, I’ve had no call, no. I mean, it’s maybe possible like the superposition quantum physics, like everything is potentially within the realm of, like, maybe this apple will fall up, I actually can’t say with certainty.”
The Gossip Girl album noted he has a relatively small role in the original film, compared to Snow, Jesse Metcalfe, Arielle Kebbell, Sophia Bush and Ashanti, so he’s not sure if he would really belong in the sequel anyway, but the Pitch Perfect star certainly does.
“I’m not doing it if you’re not doing it,” she told her co-star, laughing. He added, “Never have I even thought of that as a potential thing. But I guess if there was a script, I would read it.”
Metcalfe, Kebbell and Bush shared the news that there was a script for a potential sequel while appearing at Epic Cons Chicago (via People) in March. At the time, Metcalfe said he had heard rumors about the screenplay for the second installment and how it was apparently “amazing,” but he hadn’t read it yet.
Kebbell, who had a hand in creating the script, said it involved all of the original cast and would perhaps give Metcalfe’s titular character a chance to change into a better person.
“I have been talking to Arielle about this for years because she was trying to get it off the ground, but I didn’t know what happened,” Snow said in the Podcrushed episode. “And it kind of just, I was like, ‘Go forth with that.’ But so, that was the last I had heard of it, was that she was trying to make it happen. And so I guess she did? So, yeah, I will read whatever people [send me]. They’ve worked really hard.”
In an interview with E! News that aired in April, Metcalfe shined more light on the screenplay, noting it hits on a lot of similar themes from the original project but through the lens of the current landscape. He explained it was more “conscientious” than the first one and “not quite as misogynistic.”
“My character has a great arc,” he said in the interview. “John has a daughter, and, you know, you see how fearful he is that she’s gonna get John Tuckered.”
While the film hasn’t been formally greenlit yet, the Desperate Housewives alum hopes the “very funny” script will help the project find a studio and officially come to life.
“Hopefully, that’ll push it over the finish line,” he said. “We’re in a Y2K moment right now, when nostalgia always sells. So, I’m optimistic that the movie will get made.”
