Under Paris 2 has received a positive development update. The French-language thriller movie, which follows scientist Sophia (Bérénice Bejo) attempting to prevent carnage when killer sharks arrive in the Seine river amid the lead-up to the Olympics, debuted on Netflix in June 2024. It quickly became the platform’s second most watched non-English movie of all time (behind the Norwegian monster movie Troll), with 102.3 million viewers accumulating 177.3 million viewing hours. A sequel was announced in November 2024, with director and co-writer Xavier Gens at the helm and Bérénice Bejo set to return as her original Under Paris character.

Variety recently spoke with Xavier Gens, who revealed that Under Paris 2 is now in the script stage. This means that the movie has progressed to a new step in its development nearly half a year after it was originally announced.

What This Means For Under Paris 2

The Movie Will Still Take Some Time To Get Made

While this update for Under Paris 2 is a positive one, it will still most likely be some time before the shark movie sequel will be ready to premiere on Netflix. The biggest hurdle, which is the reason Variety reached out to the director in the first place, is the fact that Gens is currently prepping to shoot the thriller Lady Chang, which is set in Thailand. The movie, which has been picked up by Prime Video, is scheduled to have a nine week shoot that kicks off on May 12.

Because production on Lady Chang kicks off almost exactly a month after this announcement was made, it seems unlikely that the screenplay for Under Paris 2 will be ready until after production is over and post-production is well underway, unless Gens steps back from screenplay duties for the project. This would mean that the script might not be completed until late 2025 at the earliest, at which point the movie would still have to go into production and post-production, likely pushing its potential premiere date to late 2026 or beyond.

Our Take On The Under Paris 2 Update

The Movie Is Still On Track

While there will still be a bit of a wait for Under Paris 2, this production timeline seems par for the course for Netflix’s non-English original hits. Troll has been on a similar track, with the upcoming Troll 2 being announced nine months after the smash hit original movie’s debut and production kicking off an additional year after that. Ultimately, it still seems possible that the wait for the shark movie sequel will end up being shorter than that hiatus, even with production on Lady Chang potentially impeding its progress.

Source: Variety