Exclusive: 'Den of Thieves 3' Offically A Go
Because, when you merely rip-off 'Point Break' or 'Poltergeist' instead of remaking them, you get a multi-movie franchise like 'Fast and the the Furious' and an 'Insidious'.
We got a news blast yesterday declaring that Lionsgate had signed a post-theatrical pay TV window deal with Prime Video, beginning with their 2026 slate but also including at least a few 2025 releases. Amazon will essentially go second in terms of post-theatrical windows following Starz. Long and short of it, this again emphasizes the extent to which A) streamers are still comparatively reliant on theatrical feature films (the hits and the flops) and B) The House That Jigsaw Built has (not unlike Sony) placed high in the so-called streaming wars by mostly staying out of the conflict and instead selling the guns. And there will be at least one high-profile weapon of war courtesy of the Santa Monica-based studio, as they are officially going ahead with a third Den of Thieves movie.
Tucker Tooley Entertainment, which co-financed the first film and helped transition the franchise from STX (which distributed the first Gerard Butler/O’Shea Jackson heist thriller in early 2018) to Lionsgate (which distributed the $32 million-and-counting grossing Den of Thieves 2: Pantara – that’s Italian for leopard – this month), will be moving forward alongside G-Base (that’s Butler’s banner with Alan Siegel) and Lionsgate to turn the potential one-and-done “rip-off, don’t remake” success story into a trilogy. Yes, say what you will about the first flick playing like a loose revamp of Michael Mann’s Heat, but Den of Thieves had its own identity, creating its own fanbase and thus becoming a singular franchise unto itself. Because what would you rather have, a remake of Point Break and Poltergeist or a Fast and the Furious and Insidious?
Butler is expected to reprise and produce, while Jackson (who was as essential to Den of Thieves 2 as was Danny Glover to any Lethal Weapon follow-ups) and writer/director Christian Gudegast are expected to return. It’s not my job to negotiate for them, but it’s not just a “Gerard Butler plays a scuzzy cop” situation, but rather (especially after Pantera, which – slight spoilers – ended with Big Nick seemingly happier and healthier than ever before) a package deal. While I don’t necessarily expect Den of Thieves 3 to be a breakout sequel, that Den of Thieves 2 essentially stayed the course (earning about as much thus far as its $44 million domestic/$80 million worldwide predecessor, with better reviews no less) seven years later amid existential changes to the theatrical industry offers tempered optimism.
Beyond the nitty-gritty (Tucker Tooley Entertainment also produced Arthur the King for theatrical and Lee Daniels’s The Deliverance and the Idris Elba-starring modern western Concrete Cowboy for Netflix), this is another example of why you still roll the damn dice on non-IP, non-franchise titles. Because, sometimes, especially when you have Gerard Butler in action-man mode with a budget that doesn’t demand tentpole-sized grosses, you can end up with an accidental franchise. While STX got the ball rolling, I’ll again note the slew of various original or new-to-cinema franchises that Lionsgate opened in the 2010s (Hitman’s Bodyguard, Now You See Me, John Wick, Knives Out, Expendables, Hunger Games, Divergent, etc.) while Hollywood was trapped in a cycle of nostalgia-skewing IP recycling. Here’s hoping Den of Thieves 3 doesn’t take seven years to get to theaters.
I have no idea what the plot line will be or if there will be any high-profile added-value element castings (like, say, Denzel Washington as a bad guy or a violently overzealous cop). However, not every franchise has to grow from a meat-and-potatoes programmer to an A-level action spectacular. In terms of a healthy and varied theatrical ecosystem, upswings like John Wick and Fast and the Furious should be treated as the exception rather than the rule. The Conjuring became a $2 billion-grossing horror franchise, but Insidious ($735 million globally on a combined $42 million budget)has done pretty well for itself too. And as far as “rip-off, don’t remake,” successes, I’m a hell of a lot more optimistic about Den of Thieves 2 than I would be about any long-gestating Heat sequel.
