Exclusive: Collateral 2 In Development, Jamie Foxx Returning
Collateral 2 with Jamie Foxx and Michael Mann is in the works.
Collateral 2, a sequel to the 2004 neo-noir thriller film starring Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise, is currently in the works with original director Michael Mann attached. According to our trusted and proven sources, the movie will be Mann’s next project after his long-in-development Heat 2, which indicates the director is in the mood for decades-later sequels. However, the idea of Collateral 2 does immediately raise the question of what Jamie Foxx will be doing in the film without the presence of Tom Cruise.
The first Collateral movie starred Jamie Foxx as a Los Angeles taxi driver named Max, whose regimented sense of habit is disrupted when he is persuaded to work as an off-the-books chauffeur by Vincent (Tom Cruise). As it turns out, Cruise’s white-haired, grey-suited character is a terrifyingly efficient, startlingly talkative assassin who has hired Foxx to shuttle him to five different hits over the course of the night. The movie was a commercial success (grossing $220 million at the box office) and critically acclaimed, netting Jamie Foxx his second Academy Award nomination.
In one sense, the critical and commercial success of the first movie would seem to make Collateral 2 a sensible choice for both Jamie Foxx and Michael Mann. In recent years, Foxx’s most notable films have been a supporting role in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home (reprising his Amazing Spider-Man 2 character Electro, but not so nerdy), voicing the lead character in the overlooked Pixar film Soul, and the vampire action comedy Day Shift with Dave Franco. While he has not suffered a tremendous flop, it is fair to say Foxx has been struggling in recent years to find a strong leading role (not to mention rumors of behind-the-scenes tantrums of late).
For his part, Michael Mann has not directed a film since the 2015 Chris Hemsworth hacker film Blackhat, which is mostly known for being one of the bigger box office flops of the last decade. As such, Collateral 2 would be a potential boost for both Jamie Foxx and Michael Mann, whose past collaborations also included the Will Smith biopic Ali and the feature film version of Miami Vice.
On the other hand, the entire premise of Collateral is that Jamie Foxx is an ordinary man who finds himself thrust into a violent, complicated world when Tom Cruise picks his cab essentially at random. The chemistry between Foxx’s desperate driver and Cruise’s philosophical sociopath is the heart of the film, so removing the Top Gun: Maverick star leaves a gaping hole to be filled. Unfortunately, that raises the strong possibility of it being filled by sweaty plot contrivances to excuse why Max is back in the hot seat again.
Perhaps Collateral 2 will involve Jamie Foxx becoming involved in a new series of crimes (or even following up on the aftermath of Tom Cruise’s rampage), but that would retroactively invalidate the idea that his character was a person unexpectedly thrown into a horrifying ordeal. Call it the Die Hard Paradox: the whole original idea was throwing a relatively unprepared and ordinary person into unexpected circumstances, only to see the power of it diminished as he gets thrown into wilder and wilder plots. Hopefully, Collateral 2 doesn’t eventually end up with Collateral: A Good Day to Drive Hard.
