We recently celebrated the 22-year anniversary of Neil Marshall’s Dog Soldiers here on Bloody Disgusting, a fan-favorite werewolf movie that’s still without a sequel. While a promising update on the anticipated sequel would soon follow, the filmmaker took to Instagram this afternoon with disappointing news.
Dog Soldiers pit soldiers up against werewolves in the Scotland wilderness, and a trilogy of films was the original plan. In fact, it had been announced back in 2004 that Dog Soldiers: Fresh Meat was in the works. Of course, that never ended up coming to fruition.
While Marshall was hard at work trying to get the sequel greenlit, it seems as though all plans have fallen through. The director shared a fanmade poster for the sequel on social media and detailed that, despite valiant efforts, Dog Soldiers 2 is no longer in the works.
“It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that this teaser poster is probably as close as we’ll ever get to a Dog Soldiers sequel. Since so many fans keep asking, I figured I couldn’t keep the disappointing news to myself any longer. Your unwavering loyalty deserves better. For the past 6 years myself and original UK producer of Dog Soldiers, Christopher Figg, have been working tirelessly to negotiate for the rights to make a sequel with the US Producer/rights holder David E. Allen and his company Dash. 6 years!! That’s as long as it took to write and make the first movie. Unfortunately these negotiations came to a sudden and unexpected halt when, earlier this year, we were due to finalize and sign the agreements and….they disappeared. Vanished. Cut off all communication. Refuse to answer emails or calls. Why, you ask. I don’t know why. That’s the point. We simply don’t know what happened or why, but the end result is that we don’t have the rights to make a sequel without this deal in place, thus rendering it effectively dead. I’m sorry. We tried. We really did. And in Chris Figg’s case spent a lot of money on legal fees doing so. We wanted this for you. For all the countless fans who’ve asked for it. But in the end, perhaps it’s just not meant to be. The original film was lightning in a bottle, and perhaps lightning doesn’t, and in some cases shouldn’t, strike twice,” Marshall wrote on Instagram.
In the 2002 film, “A group of soldiers, in the Scottish Highlands on a special training expedition, encounters a seriously injured Captain Richard Ryan – the only survivor of a Special Ops squad that was torn to pieces. Ryan refuses to disclose his mission, even though it is apparent that whatever attacked his men was incredibly vicious and extremely dangerous. A local girl, Megan, shelters the men in an isolated farmhouse deep in the woods. The soldiers soon realize that they are surrounded by a pack of blood-lusting werewolves, and that they are about to face the fight of their lives.”
Kevin McKidd (Trainspotting), Sean Pertwee (Event Horizon), Emma Cleasby (Doomsday) and Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones) starred.
Paul Le wrote here on BD earlier this year, “The incredible highs of werewolf horror make up for the many, many lows. And after twenty-plus years, Dog Soldiers remains a benchmark.”