Attack the Block director is 'very excited' about sequel storyline

Director Joe Cornish tells EW that he's "very excited" about the storyline for Attack the Block 2, his planned sequel to the beloved, John Boyega-starring 2011 alien invasion movie. Cornish has re-teamed with Boyega on the project, a co-production between the Star Wars actor's UpperRoom company and Cornish's own Complete Fiction.

"We are working hard on Attack the Block 2," says Cornish. "We've got a storyline, which we're very excited about. I consult with John the whole time, when he's not, you know, flying to some exotic location being a massive movie star."

The original film found a gang of criminally-minded teenagers facing off against alien creatures in and around a London tower block. Cornish was initially inspired to make it after he was mugged by some shockingly youthful thieves and set out to understand why they had robbed him.

"The thing that struck me was how young the kids were," Cornish told EW ahead of the film's US release. "It made me want to find out why a young person would find themselves in a position where they thought robbing someone was an acceptable choice, or a reasonable thing to do. So I researched it a lot. I spent months and months talking to kids in south London and trying to find the type of kid that did that to me. I ended up feeling a great deal of empathy with kids like that whilst not apologizing in any way for the wrongness of what they do at the start of the film."

Boyega announced on Instagram in 2021 that the sequel was a go.

"Yes Attack the Block 2 is happening!" the actor wrote. "Yes I'll be starring and producing! Yes I'm bloody excited ! London VS them tings."

Cornish reveals to EW that he's currently conducting interviews as part of the sequel's script-writing process.

"We are in the research phase of the writing," he says. "We're doing what we did with the first film, which is going out into the world, and finding the characters in the real world, and interviewing people about every single aspect of the story that we are writing, so that we can contextualize our fantasy plot-line in as credible as possible a reality. In fact, I've just literally, a moment ago, come from a two-hour interview with somebody who represents one of the aspects of the story. So, yeah, we're doing our due diligence, because we reckon one of the things that made the first film work was that mix of made-up fantasy craziness and carefully researched reality. The made-up crazy fantasy I do very easily, but the reality takes a bit of work."

Cornish followed Attack the Block with 2019's The Kid Who Would Be King and the just-launched Netflix fantasy show Lockwood & Co.

"Lockwood & Co. is set in a Britain which is plagued by ghosts, an epidemic of hauntings that's been going on for for more than 50 years," says Cornish, who is showrunner of the series' first season. "The twist is, ghosts are lethal, they can kill you when they touch you."

Watch the trailers for Attack the Block and Lockwood & Co. below.

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