The original Escape Room was one of the most fun horror movie surprises of the last several years, and on Wednesday, Sony gave us our first look at the sequel in a new trailer. But it seems that Sony may be giving away some of the movie’s surprises — or maybe the studio’s playing an elaborate trick.
“Play the game, or we die!” It’s strange to think that some seemingly disposable horror thrillers get sequels when no one really cared: or so you thought anyhow. Sony Pictures clearly cares about their “Escape Room” horror so much they turned it into a franchise. And that’s because, while you weren’t paying attention, “Escape Room” was made for $9 million and grossed $155.7 million worldwide, which is a lot of profit. And so director Adam Robitel and producer Neal H. Moritz are back with a sequel, “Escape Room: Tournament of Champions,” planned for a July 16, 2021 release.
Escape Room brought six strangers together in a series of deadly puzzles where only the last one standing would survive. But Zoey (Taylor Russell) and Ben (Logan Miller) both beat the system and walked away with their lives. Unfortunately, the game isn’t done with them yet as the two suddenly find themselves in a series of new puzzles with a whole new group of strangers. But this time, the game gets more challenging, because as the Escape Room: Tournament of Champions trailer reveals, everyone else has played before too.
The trailer for Escape Room: Tournament of Champions picks up right where the last movie ended, with the survivors of the first escape room making their way to New York City to confront the company that locked them in there to begin with. But, of course, the company is one step ahead of them, trapping them in a new deadly escape room along with survivors from other rooms across the country.
From there, the trailer cuts between some of the traps that are sure to feature heavily in the movie. As great as each trap and scene looks in the trailer, it’s hard not to feel like every trap they show might be giving away a surprise that would have been better saved for the theater, but that was true of the first movie’s trailer too, and it turned out to be a clever trick. As much as the original movie’s trailer showed, it also served to set up expectations that the full movie could then upend.
Hopefully Escape Room 2’s trailer is playing a similar game, but even if that’s not the case, it still looks like a lot of fun.
SCREEN SHOT
