It Follows Confirms Sequel, They Follow, With Maika Monroe's Awaited Return

Director David Robert Mitchell and lead star Maika Monroe are teaming up for a sequel to "It Follows," titled "They Follow." 

Back in 2014, Mitchell made waves at Cannes with his horror pic "It Follows," a bone-chilling flick about a woman (Monroe) who is haunted by a mysterious entity after a sexual encounter. The only way to get rid of the demonic, restless entity? To pass it on to someone else through sex. With an infectious, pulse-pounding score from electronic composer Disasterpeace, haunting imagery from Mitchell, and stellar performances from Monroe and the supporting cast, "It Follows" became a horror darling when it received a wide release in 2015. 

With a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes, "It Follows" confidently emerged as one of the best films of that year, and served as a defining moment for Mitchell and Monroe's careers. And thanks to a global haul shy of $24 million, it became a significant hit at the box office when one considers its extremely minimal $1.3 million budget. In the years since the film's release, it has become a modern-day cult classic of sorts, having been watched over 671,000 times on the film social media site Letterboxd, besting old-school horror hits like "Suspiria" and "The Blair Witch Project" on the platform. 

Now, nearly a decade after the film debuted at Cannes, Neon has confirmed that a sequel, titled "They Follow," is in active development, with Mitchell and Monroe set to return for their respective creative roles. The news is no doubt surprising, but certainly welcome, as talks of a sequel manifested all the way back in 2015. Concrete plot details on the highly-anticipated sequel are slim, though The Hollywood Reporter says the picture will begin filming in 2024. 

In 2015, Tom Quinn of Neon suggested to Entertainment Weekly that an "It Follows" sequel could focus on the entity being chased. "Flip the title," Quinn suggested at the time. "There's so much you could do." 

The implication was that the sequel would be titled "Follow It," in the sense that Maika Monroe's Jay and the rest of the ensemble would go after the entity. It (no pun intended) remains to be seen if that's the direction the sequel goes in. Seeing as the film is titled "They Follow," it's likely that the "they" is Jay and her friends. However, no one from the original cast besides Monroe has signed on for the sophomore outing.

As crazy as it is to say, "It Follows" is no longer the fresh horror flick off the block. It's been almost 10 years since the film hit cinemas, and a number of other genre-defining projects like "Hereditary" and "Barbarian" have come out since "It Follows" dominated the conversation. Nostalgia is powerful and Neon greenlighting a sequel is a brilliant move, considering that "They Follow" will probably end up being a legacy sequel. Yes, it's only been eight years and some change at the time of writing, but that's a lifetime in horror. The "Scream" franchise got its legacy reboot/sequel in 2022, or 11 years after "Scream IV." 

This seems like the best time to put all your chips on horror, as the genre is making considerable waves at the box office post-pandemic. Horror has accounted for nearly $800 million of the domestic box office in 2023 — that's a 26% increase from 2022, an already solid year for the genre. If all goes well, "They Follow" could be another hit for Neon and director David Robert Mitchell.