David F. Sandberg’s Lights Out has been the quiet horror success of the summer, drawing mostly positive reviews from critics, and parlaying its meager $4 million budget into more than $60 million at the domestic and international box offices. Our own A.A. Dowd enjoyed the film’s simple-but-effective “monster that can only move in darkness” conceit, but had qualms with its ending and its sometimes heavy-handed metaphors. (Interestingly, someone claiming to be Sandberg showed up in the comments of our Spoiler Space for the film to discuss the reasons for its potentially off-putting climax.)
New Line, never slow to recognize and profit from new talent, was quick to absorb Sandberg into its Conjuring horror franchise, slotting him in as the director of bad doll sequel Annabelle 2. Now it’s announcing that the light-averse Diana will ride again, with news coming today that Lights Out 2 is on its way. It’s not clear if any of the first film’s cast—including Teresa Palmer, Maria Bello, and Sandberg’s wife, Lotta Losten, with whom he created the short film on which the movie was based—will be returning, but Deadline has confirmed that Sandberg and screenwriter Eric Heisserer will both be back for more spooky flashlight fun.