Uruguayan filmmaker Fede Alvarez is currently presenting his recently released latest work, the new entry in the Millennium movies saga The Girl in the Spider’s Web (2018), but he still has some time to talk about his future projects. Besides the announcement of the sequel for his popular movie Don’t Breathe (2016), a new title has bloomed into his agenda. And it is no more and no less than the sequel of 1980s fantasy classic Labyrinth (1986).
In the original film, directed by Jim Henson, produced by George Lucas, and based upon conceptual designs by Brian Froud, fifteen-year-old Sarah Williams, played by Jennifer Connelly, is rehearsing a play in the park with her dog Merlin but becomes distracted by a line she is unable to remember while being watched by a barn owl. Realizing she is late to babysit her baby brother Toby, she rushes home and is confronted by her stepmother before she and her father leave for dinner. Sarah has many toys that she has grown out of and realizes that Toby is in possession of her treasured teddy bear Lancelot. Frustrated by this and his constant crying, Sarah rashly wishes Toby be taken away by a character in the play she is rehearsing, the Goblin King Jareth majestically performed by David Bowie. She is shocked when Toby disappears and the Goblin King confronts her and transports her to his kingdom. He refuses to return the baby but gives Sarah thirteen hours to solve his labyrinth and find him before Toby is turned into a goblin forever. Sarah meets a dwarfish man named Hoggle, who aids her in entering the Labyrinth.
Jay Basu, who was also part of the writing team of The Girl in the Spider’s Web (2018), joined forces again with director Fede Alvarez to write the new adventures in the Labyrinth world. it has been reported that this new film will be a direct continuation of the original movie. Nicole Perlman, who is credited for working on the screenplays of popular action fantasy films like Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and the upcoming Captain Marvel (2019), has also participated in the script. Sony Pictures Entertainment and TriStar Pictures will produce.
In an interview with Fandango, Fede Alvarez stated that “I was having lunch yesterday with Lisa Henson [of co-producers Jim Henson Company and daughter of the original movie’s director] and we reconnected with that project. We’re very excited about it. It is basically a direct continuation of the first movie many years later, and I can’t tell you much more about it… but we have a script, and we’re very excited about it so we’ll see where that goes. Like always, it takes time and effort to put those movies together because they’re larger than life. But that’s one of the projects that I’m very excited about”. Well, movies are larger than life, that is true. Let’s just hope this sequel soon to come can keep up with a fairy tale that has amazed several generations like Labyrinth (1986) is.
