Crawl 2 casts Mason Gooding and Emily Rudd as leads in Alexandre Aja’s horror sequel

Time to dust off those gator jokes again, because Crawl 2 is finally happening — and the new cast might actually have to worry about making it through with all their bits attached. Mason Gooding (you probably saw him running from Ghostface in Scream 7) and Emily Rudd (of Netflix’s One Piece) have just been announced as the leads. I’d be checking the fine print for danger pay if I were them.

Alexandre Aja is back in the director’s chair, picking up after his 2019 horror hit about man-versus-gator chaos in hurricane conditions. If you missed the outrageously fun first film, a quick refresher: woman ignores every possible red flag, goes looking for her missing dad, and both end up trapped in a flooded basement with a handful (well, several mouthfuls) of hungry alligators. It worked. On a budget of $15 million, the film managed to pull in $91 million worldwide and even got a shoutout from Quentin Tarantino as one of his favourites that year.

Crawl 2 is set to start filming later this month — but in Hungary, not Florida.

New Waters, Same Teeth

Bit of a switch-up for the sequel: while the first Crawl was set in steamy Florida, Crawl 2 is moving north to New York. Apparently, this time it’s the Big Apple wading through post-hurricane flooding — and yes, there will be gators in the streets and sewers. Just when you thought New York’s rat problem was enough.

The script’s a group job: original director Aja and producer Gregory Levasseur worked on it along with Jason Harry Pagan and Andrew Deutschman. No sign of Kaya Scodelario returning for more swim practice, which is hardly shocking given Aja’s previous comments about wanting a new lead.

Why It Took So Long

Here’s the curious bit: you’d think, with box office numbers and cult kudos, they’d have spun up a sequel sharpish. Not so. Turns out, it’s more to do with creative choices than studio cold feet. Back in 2021, when the inevitable sequel questions started swirling, Aja admitted they were ‘talking about a sequel non-stop, and putting together a really, really fun take.’ He made it clear he didn’t want to drag the original heroine through another round. Referring to lead character Haley, he said:

‘I think the story of Haley is a really strong one, but I believe that Crawl is about nature taking back its due, and kind of like… more hurricane driven, man versus animal. So maybe it will be another story altogether. We’re looking for that human story right now, that will be as strong as the one in the first one. To make the second one legit.’

So there it is: Crawl was Haley’s gig, but for round two, fresh faces (well, soon-to-be-panicked ones) and a new disaster. Filming starts in Hungary in a matter of weeks, with the crawlspace swapped for a subway tunnel — probably. Weather forecast: absolutely flooded, with a high risk of reptile bites.