Shortly after stepping away from Marvel Studios' Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in 2020, Scott Derrickson signed on to helm another sequel set in a mind-bending alternate dimension for Sony-owned studio TriStar Pictures: a follow-up to Jim Henson's classic fantasy adventure, Labyrinth.
Updates have been practically non-existent since, so it was generally assumed that the project must have been shelved, but The Black Phone filmmaker has now revealed that Labyrinth 2 is still in development - although he has no idea when it will actually enter production.
"We never got the script all the way to a place where the studio wanted to make it, but I was very proud of the work that we did on it," Derrickson explains to ComicBook.com. "And it's a hard, hard project to turn into something commercially viable, because it's so imaginative and surreal that there's no way that it can be done cheaply. And at the same time, it's so daring and different that it is a tough movie for a studio to feel competent that it has enough commercial value to earn a profit. So I think that it's a tough nut to crack, but all I can tell you is I'm very proud of the work that we did on it. We certainly had a great film in mind."
When asked if the plan was to cast another actor as Jareth the Goblin King in the wake of the legendary David Bowie's passing, Derrickson declined to go into too much detail, but does say they "had a really cool idea."
"Because the project is still in development, I probably shouldn't say what the plans are because I think we had a really cool idea, but I don't want to blow that in case the movie does get made."
The 1986 original starred Jennifer Connolly as a teenager named Sarah who enters a strange fantasy realm in an effort to rescue her little brother from Jareth the Goblin King (Bowie). There, she meets some weird and wonderful creatures (Hoggle, Ludo and Sir Didymus) who help her on her quest to reach the King's castle.
Although it received something of a mixed reception upon its release, the movie has since gone on to achieve cult status, and we've seen various spinoff comics, books, and video games over the years. There's also an annual fan masquerade ball, which is considered one of the largest of its kind in the world.
Maggie Levin (Into the Dark, My Valentine) was tasked with writing the sequel's script back when it was first announced, while The Jim Henson Company's Brian and Lisa Henson were on board as producers. We don't know if they're still attached, however.