Eastern Promises Sequel Body Cross May Begin Shooting in March

The long-gestating sequel to David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises, titled Body Cross, may finally begin shooting in March of 2017, casting site My Entertainment World (via Little White Lies) reports.

This news, though still awaiting confirmation, is a long time coming, given that the first film debuted in 2007 and Steven Knight has had a script ready since before his 2014 interview with IndieWire, in which he characterized the script for the second film as being “much better than the first.” Although Focus Features canceled the project back in 2012, production would appear to be moving forward, with My Entertainment World even going so far as to provide a synopsis for the hotly anticipated follow-up to Cronenberg’s critically acclaimed Russian mob saga:

The sequel picks up where the 2007 film left off—with the incompetent underboss Kirill thinking that he and his henchman driver Nikolai really have inherited the throne from his crime-lord father, without knowing that Nikolai is actually a clandestine agent working undercover in Russia’s federal security service.

This plot summary reveals virtually nothing we didn’t already know from the first film, but no matter. The prospect of an Eastern Promises follow-up alone is enough to induce wild fits of anticipation, so masterfully constructed was the original film. If Body Cross delivers anything in the ballpark of the bathhouse fight scene from the first movie, the sequel will have been well worth the wait. Also notable is Knight’s attachment to the project, given the writer/director’s involvement with a handful of high-profile projects ranging from the Tom Hardy-led, one-man acting showcase Locke to period gangster epic Peaky Blinders.

Stay tuned for any updates on the production of Body Cross.