Fresh off her role as Ursula in The Little Mermaid, Melissa McCarthy is keen to work with another iconic villain in the form of Octavia Spencer’s Ma and her as-of-now unofficially confirmed sequel.
During an interview for Entertainment Weekly‘s 3 Rounds video series, the Oscar-nominated Bridesmaids star gushed that she “would do anything with Octavia”, including starring in a follow-up to 2019’s campy horror-thriller that followed a lonely veterinary aide who befriends a group of teenagers, although her intentions are far more sinister than just enabling their underage drinking.
Here’s the full quote from EW:
“I would do anything with Octavia, for Octavia, in the ballpark of Octavia, if there’s a picture of Octavia in the background at one point in the script โ I would do anything for that glorious woman,” McCarthy tells host Alexis Wilson, who asks if she’d be game to “avenge Ma’s death” in a hypothetical sequel. “She’s a better person, she’s the funniest human I know, she’s the kindest, smartest person I know. We’ve been friends for over 25 years.”
As mentioned, Ma 2 is still unofficially confirmed, although director Tate Taylor has revealed he has a plot planned out to continue the tale of Ma (whose fate was implied, but never shown on screen):
“My idea is that she’s moved to another town, and she has open houses in another city and kills people in the open house,” Taylor explains of potentially switching up Ma’s profession from no-nonsense vet tech to killer realtor. “I think she’d be a real estate agent in the Pacific Northwest, and just murder white people looking at McMansions. That’s as far as I’ve gotten!”
So, McCarthy’s on board, Taylor’s on board, we’re definitely on board – how about the lady herself? Taylor seems confident that Spencer would return to the role, which is why he left the ending ambiguous. Spencer herself has spoken about how excited she was to subvert expectations as a new Black horror icon:
โThere are archetypes people only want to see me as,โ Spencer adds. (โWise charactersโ wearing โperiod wigs and costumes,โ as Taylor explains it.) โSo I had to change that for myself [and] the next young woman of color to be able to play every type of role.โ
So there we have it folks. Could we see McCarthy and Spencer teaming up to continue Ma’s bloody rampage of revenge? We’ll have any updates for you on a Ma sequel, as and when we get them!
