Melissa McCarthy on why Spy never got a sequel, despite $120 million and Jason Statham's funniest role
Spy took $120 million in 2015 and everyone involved wanted more. McCarthy says studios stopped backing films at that size.
Let’s talk about Spy, shall we? The 2015 action comedy where Jason Statham gets the chance to send up his usual tough-guy persona, Melissa McCarthy turns in one of her sharpest lead performances, and – let’s be honest – it was bloody good fun. Reasonable box office, properly well-liked, and the kind of film where you just assume a sequel will roll around before you know it. Only, as everyone’s noticed, Spy 2 never actually happened. Melissa McCarthy has recently explained why – and if you’re hoping for a satisfying answer, well, brace yourself, because it’s a bit of Hollywood head-scratching mixed with the usual studio logic.
Why No Spy 2?
In a fresh interview with Variety, McCarthy was pressed about why the sequel died quietly despite the original doing the business (in both ticket sales and, crucially, people actually enjoying themselves). Now, the obvious question: was it down to the leading lady not being a bloke? McCarthy’s response is classic: it probably didn’t help, but the numbers were surely enough on their own.
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Here’s how McCarthy put it to Variety:
No — well, Jesus, that probably doesn’t help, but I don’t know. It did so well. People can say that doesn’t matter. I think it does,
McCarthy brought up Thunder Force (her other team-up, this time for Netflix) as a film that someone at least had the sense to try to franchise, highlighting that success is supposed to lead to more films, not fewer. She admitted she and the creative team were all-in and already had ideas for a follow-up because, as she puts it, 'it’s so fun' and had brought Netflix strong results.
Then she started to challenge the way studios pick and choose which films get franchised now. McCarthy pointed out, with a bit of dry resignation, that if she writes something and it flops, she’ll own up to it (not that it’s happened so far, at least at that kind of scale). She also didn’t pretend her films are massive global tentpoles, but $120 million on Spy’s budget wasn’t exactly a failure either – nobody at the studio was complaining, she insisted.
We don’t make those kind of movies, but, I mean, $120 million, I’m not mad at that. The studio’s not mad at that,
According to her, the real hurdle is that 'reasonably priced, fairly profitable' films just aren’t as fashionable anymore. Studios want either comic-book juggernauts or bust, apparently.
When the interviewer chucked in the obvious comment – surely Spy should have been a multi-film franchise by now – McCarthy was in total agreement. In fact, as she explained, everyone who worked on it was raring to go, game for a new bad guy, new destination, the works. If she had her way, we’d be on Spy 9 right now. Instead? Nothing. Franchise potential boxed up in storage with the wigs and fake moustaches.
Spy opened in 2015 and took in $120 million worldwide.