Variety reports that Dave Franco will be reprising his role in next year’s Neighbors 2. In the 2014 original film, Franco played Pete, the chapter vice president of Delta Psi who had to hide his ambitions to not be a perennial wastoid, lest he be cast out from his hard-partying fraternity. Franco joins a growing list of returning cast members, including Zac Efron, Rose Byrne, and Seth Rogen. Plot details are thin, with Chloë Grace Moretz rumored to be involved with a sorority causing off-campus problems.
Given that the original grossed more than $268 million against a budget of $18 million, there’s not a lot of rocket science required to chart the sequel. Franco should continue to be a critical darling for still not being James Franco and Efron may still inflict minor lacerations with his abdominal muscles, while Rogen will definitely issue more staccato, nervous laughter from beneath a Odd Future snapback hat that he’s a decade too old to be wearing. And considering that the entire third act of the original Neighbors revolved around Byrne getting sucked into the cyclone of nocturnal collegiate shenanigans, a sorority-themed sequel will likely take those all-girl party scenes and crank them up to 11.
Director Nicholas Stoller is also returning to oversee the focus-group-engineered algorithm known as Neighbors 2: More Of The Same. If nothing else, the sequel should help remind freshly minted college graduates that party time is officially over when it hits theaters on May 20, 2016.