If the current box office projections hold, the Chloe Grace Moretz starring “If I Stay” will easily take the lead over “Sin City: A Dame To Kill For,” and mainstays “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Which begs the question: what about a sequel?
Spoilers for “If I Stay” past this point.
Given the subject matter – a teenage girl slips into a coma after the rest of her family is killed in a car crash, and has to decide whether to keep living, or move on to whatever is next – you wouldn’t immediately think the story would continue. And certainly, you pulling a “Die Hard 2″ with the story (“I can’t believe my whole family is dying in a car crash… Again!”) is not the way to go.
But as it turns out, author Gayle Forman actually wrote a critically acclaimed, fan favorite sequel to “If I Stay” that could feed right into a second helping.
Seriously, MAJOR spoilers for “If I Stay” past this point.
So Moretz’s character Mia decides to keep on living after her boyfriend, up and coming rock star Adam (Jamie Blackley), plays her the cello music she’s loved nearly her whole life. Adam also promises to give up his career, life, whatever Mia needs to keep their relationship together if she decides to go on and move to New York to attend Julliard.
Three years later, in “Where She Went,” Adam and Mia have broken up. Mia is a famous cellist, and Adam is about to embark on a European tour with his band. He sneaks into one of Mia’s concerts during a layover in New York, and they have a “Before Sunrise” style conversation about what went wrong.
If Warner Bros. does decide to go ahead with an “If I Stay” sequel, the material is there, and it includes both Moretz and Blackley’s characters. Also, given the walk and talk nature of the book, it’s not like a direct adaptation would be expensive to produce.
A film would also potentially circumvent the most controversial change from book-to-book, which is a shift in perspective from Mia’s inner monologue, to Adam’s. On screen, you can offer both perspectives without an interior monologue.
The question, though, is if movie audiences, used to sequels that follow at least some of the format of the original, would go for a movie that doesn’t include the existential, quasi-supernatural trappings of “If I Stay.”
Regardless of what happens after this weekend, if you saw “If I Stay” and want to know more about Mia and Adam’s relationship, the book sequel is there – even if the movie sequel may never see the light of day.
“If I Stay” is in theaters now.
Alex Zalben
Writer/Editor at MTV News. You can follow him on Twitter, but not in real life because that would be weird.
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