Gareth Evans says The Raid 3 is "not likely"
Fans of flying fists and acrobatic tackles flocked to The Raid: Redemption and The Raid 2, two exhilarating popcorn flicks that, for once in a modern action movie, didn’t rely on frantic quick cuts to capture a fight’s frenetic pace. Since 2014, we’ve been patiently waiting for our front doors to smash open, martial artist Iko Uwais dragging with him yet another quintet of baddies to rough up in our living rooms. Yet, alas, it appears our doors shall remain lamely intact.
In a new interview with Slash Film, director Gareth Evans sounds as weary of Uwais must feel at the end of one of Evans’ long takes. “The Raid 1 and 2 were incredible for me, but I just didn’t want to be doing The Raids all the time,” he said. “And the more time has gone on from that, the less interested I’ve been to go back there. What we did with The Raid 2, we kinda close that off nicely, so it didn’t really appeal to me to jump back into that world again.”
This dovetails with even more definitive comments Evans made to Cinemablend:
“The Raid 3 was… at one point it was on my radar. I had a full idea. I know what the storyline would have been. But I think enough time has passed now that I think I’m not likely to go back and revisit it. We had a lot of fun making those films, and I think we came to a nice, sort of natural conclusion with it. And I think sometimes you can have a little bit too much of a good thing.”
While this might be disappointing, it’s undoubtedly refreshing in a Hollywood culture content to run iconic characters and stories into the ground in pursuit of profit. Also, Evans’ upcoming project, the cult spooker Apostle, looks to be a fine use of his talents, especially in the wake of his excellent V/H/S 2 segment, “Safe Haven.” Also, Evans’s Raid movies were instrumental in helping to embolden our current action landscape, with fast-paced, ultra-violent slugfests like John Wick cropping up in their wake.
Besides, if you’re really dying for more Raid content, do yourself a favor and check out Titan’s new The Raid comic, which we praised for capturing the films’ “bone-crushing brutality.”