Vin Diesel’s Bloodshot is somehow getting a sequel

I know that some of you enjoyed Bloodshot, but I was left… bloody disappointed. It wasn’t that the Vin Diesel-led superhero flick deviated from the brilliant Valiant Comics title that irked me – I have no issue with this as I’ve never been a stickler for strict adaptation fidelity. No, I just felt it was badly made overall with dumb plotting decisions, terrible characters, sloppy action, and very iffy production values (I’m still okay-ish with the bad CGI turning Diesel and co into putty people, but using Cape Town as a stand-in shooting location for London and then not even bothering to change/remove SAPS uniforms/vehicles, Bo Kaap landmarks, AND TABLE FREAKING MOUNTAIN was unforgivable).

Most other film reviewers were not impressed as well, but cinemagoers… well, actually, this film barely had cinemagoers as Bloodshot limped into theatres in March, right as cinemas worldwide were being shut down in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. While it played theatrically for just two weeks, DMG Entertainment (aka Valiant’s parent company) and Sony saw the writing on the wall and very quickly pivoted to give Bloodshot a home VOD release as well. And it appears that quick-thinking paid off.

Talking to CBR, DMG Entertainment Dan Mintz revealed that while Bloodshot’s VOD numbers may not be as easy to parse as traditional box office figures, it was successful enough that the media conglomerate is bringing back Diesel for a sequel.

I think [Bloodshot] was very successful in that respect, a lot of people saw it and it did very well in the post-release rollout but you can’t use the same evaluation process, pre-COVID, to this. [Are] Vin Diesel and all those people going to still continue? Yes, because it did so well and the response to it has been so well, it’s just that the response has been in a non-transparent environment, as opposed to a transparent environment like box office numbers.

Bloodshot saw Diesel star as Ray Garrison, a former marine who discovers that he was actually killed in action but has been resurrected by an experimental nanite program which has turned him into an unstoppable super soldier. In the film, Ray is the first successful test subject of the Bloodshot program but he also faces off against other cybernetic creations of the Rising Spirit Tech company, which comic book readers will know is central to several other titles/characters in the Valiant comic book universe.

The original plan from Sony and DMG had been for Bloodshot to be the start of a Valiant Comics cinematic universe, but then some Hollywood wheeling and dealing meant some key character rights moved over to Paramount. The nail on that cinematic universe coffin really got hammered home after Bloodshot’s apparent unfortunate theatrical release. But could that be back on the cards again now in some new form?

DMG is not yet sharing any details about who will be back for this sequel besides Diesel and what the story will entail. I wouldn’t be surprised if some other Valiant characters get added into the mix though – there’s certainly a lot to choose from. Also, I wonder if DMG and Sony are not perhaps thinking of giving the untitled Bloodshot sequel (I’m hoping it will be called 2 Blood 2 Shot) a VOD release as well. You would have to think that there’s a large contingent of folks who watched it digitally simply because it was there, but who would probably not have seen it in cinema. And you have to keep that audience happy now, right?

Last Updated: November 10, 2020