Warning: Contains spoilers for See How They Run.
The See How They Run ending is left fairly open-ended in some regards, so where could a sequel go next? While See How They Run 2 has not been announced, sequels and franchises are always tantalizing prospects these days. With characters left alive to continue on at the end of the first movie, there’s plenty of room for a sequel to further explore this world.
See How They Run is a comedy mystery that centers itself around a performance of Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap in London’s West End in 1953. Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) are brought in to solve the case, dealing with an Ambassador Theatre filled with actors, writers, and producers. Their exploits take them out to the Christie Estate and Agatha Christie herself becomes a central part of the story.
SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY
At the end of See How They Run, both Stoppard and Stalker are alive and continuing in their duties, with Stalker acing her sergeants’ exam, and the two seeming to remain friends as they go to see The Mousetrap together. This means that See How They Run 2 could follow the same two investigators on a new adventure. As See How They Run relies so heavily on parody and homage, a new work would need to be found to serve as the center for the story. Having working with Agatha Christie (the “Queen of Crime”) and The Mousetrap (the West End’s longest running play) the stakes for inspiration are high. However, the mystery genre is rich with possibilities, and a continuation of the See How They Run story could see works of other British crime writers explored, or a contrivance could take the pair to the United States to delve into an meta-narrative around an iconic American mystery writer such as Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett. This final option would tie in well with the noir-style narration that Adrien Brody’s Leo Köpernick provides at the start of See How They Run.
Knives Out Has Set A Precedent For Parody Mystery Franchises
While a comedy movie like See How They Run that parodies a very specific set of genre tropes might seem like a one-and-done situation, that is not necessarily the case. Knives Out was originally intended to be a standalone film, and it plays on many of the same sorts of tropes as See How They Run. After Knives Out success, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery was confirmed along with a third, as yet unnamed, movie.
With Knives Out set to establish it’s own comedy mystery franchise in the United States, the door is open for See How They Run to do the same. With Knives Out’s playbook, See How They Run 2 could court similar success with its more British tone. There’s scope for a lengthy series – Agatha Christie’s own characters, such as Hercules Poirot and Miss Marple, do after all appear in a huge number of adventures, and there’s no reason the same should not be true for Stoppard and Stalker.