Here's why Wanted 2 never happened. Released in 2008, the Wanted movie was adapted from the Mark Millar comic series of the same name. The film followed a sheepish office worker who learns his father was part of a secret group of assassins known as The Fraternity and is recruited as their newest member.
Directed by Timur Bekmambetov and starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, and Morgan Freeman, Wanted was a pulse-pounding action film. McAvoy played Wesley, recruited to be a ruthless, cold-blooded assassin, while Jolie played his mentor, Fox. Freeman's Sloan oversaw Fraternity missions and doled them out to various Fraternity members. As Wanted goes on, Wesley learns how Sloan has been manipulating him to take targets the boss wants to be killed but aren't named in the Loom of Fate, the machine which dictates who dies next. A standoff between Wesley and The Fraternity ends in bloodshed, with all of the members dead and Wesley free to carry on his work as an assassin.
The Wanted movie's open ending definitely teased a sequel, but well over a decade later, it's clear that didn't happen. Here's why Wanted 2 remained forever trapped in development hell.
Wanted 2 Was Going To Happen
The Wanted movie ended with James McAvoy's Wesley ready to step into his new role as a highly-trained assassin and freed of The Fraternity. And, after the movie made $341 million at the worldwide box office, it was hardly surprising that conversations on a possible Wanted sequel began. That said, it wasn't until 2011 that reports emerged that Universal was seriously exploring developing Wanted 2. Wanted screenwriting team Michael Brandt and Derek Haas had been re-hired to write the script and Bekmambetov attached himself to the sequel, although he had to finish filming on Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter first. All of the parts were falling into place for Wanted 2 to happen.
The Wanted 2 Story Would Have Made Big Changes
The plans for Wanted 2 suggested a rather different story. Picking up with Wesley a few years later, Mark Millar suggested a sequel would introduce the other assassin fraternities featured in the Wanted comics (there are five total) and bring in "another cool new character" to replace Jolie, who passed on returning shortly before development on the sequel began.
In 2012, co-screenwriter Derek Haas elaborated on these early story details by sharing that Wanted 2's story would turn The Fraternity's mantra - "Kill one, save a thousand" – on its head, but didn't specify how exactly that would play out in the movie. He added in a separate interview that the new character taking over the female lead slot from Angelina Jolie would be in a similar position to Wesley in Wanted: "She's got a shitty life. He's sort of in the Fox role." Bekmambetov also shared in an interview promoting Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter that Wanted 2 would have "the same character, same mythology, but it's got a great twist."
Wanted 2 Development Is At A Standstill
But development on Wanted 2 came to a standstill. In 2014, producer Marc Platt shared an update on why the long-awaited sequel was still delayed:
"You don’t want to just retread a similar story, but when we get the script to a certain bar, there will be a sequel. It’s taken a while because it’s challenging, as I said, because we lost a main, main character, so where that James McAvoy character goes now… we have good ideas though. It’s coming along."
Despite creative ideas poured into the film, the essential problem was the inability to come up with a viable story that didn't rehash the original, which would have involved Wesley training a new female assassin. Since then, no further word on Wanted 2 was ever reported. As of now, Wanted 2 is a project that has been put on the backburner for the foreseeable future. Fans of Millar's work, however, can get their fix with the Kingsman movie franchise and new Millarworld projects on Netflix.
James McAvoy Wants To Play Wesley Gibson Again (Despite It Being Over A Decade)
James McAvoy has played a staggering number of interesting characters in his career, but not all of them are ones he'd like to revisit. In a 2021 interview with Screen Rant, however, when asked which characters he would be interested in taking another crack at, he mentioned that "I always fancied seeing what happened to Wesley Gibson in the movie, Wanted." This is far from McAvoy fully committing to appear again as Wesley Gibson, and Wanted 2 still doesn't appear to be happening. Still, it's interesting that in a career as long and varied as McAvoy's, Wesley Gibson represents a pair of shoes he'd like to step back into. This is probably a testament to how engaging it was for McAvoy to make Wanted and how well the movie set itself up for a sequel, despite the fact that it never actually happened. In a post-The Boys world accustomed to extremely confrontational superhero content, a Wanted sequel that takes the series a little closer to its horrifying roots would be not only possible but welcomed, and James McAvoy would be well-positioned to reassume the role.