It feels like sequels are both nowhere and everywhere these days. While we’re in the era of the franchise, studios are hesitant to give second installments to movies that weren’t monster hits or part of a cinematic universe. But there are exceptions; a recent sequel announcement is giving a forgotten movie a new lease on life, and coaxing a 92-year-old star out of retirement in the process.
According to Deadline, Lionsgate has greenlit a sequel to the 2015 Vin Diesel movie The Last Witch Hunter, a straightforward fantasy action thriller inspired by Diesel’s own Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. The Fast and the Furious star played Kaulder, an immortal witch hunter who must save the world from a magical plague. Apparently, a new threat has emerged a decade later.
Michael Caine and Elijah Wood in The Last Witch Hunter.
But the strangest part of this announcement is who’s attached as a co-star. Michael Caine will reprise his role as a priest named Dolan, despite retiring from acting in 2023. The now-92-year-old decided to step away from the business after starring in The Great Escaper, about a veteran who escapes his nursing home to attend D-Day anniversary celebrations.
According to Caine at the time, he wanted to quit while he was ahead. “I played the lead and it's got incredible reviews,” he said on the BBC’s Today radio show. “The only parts I'm liable to get now are old men, 90-year-old men, and I thought, well, I might as well leave with all this. I've got wonderful reviews. What am I going to do to beat this?”
Michael Caine is coming back for one last job.
Fittingly, Dolan, who helps Kaulder track down rogue witches, retires in The Last Witch Hunter’s first act but agrees by movie’s end to stick around a little longer. That may have been a decade ago, but it seems to be a serendipitous moment of life imitating art. Or at least imitating witch hunting.
But is a decade too long to wait for a sequel to a forgotten fantasy thriller? Caine said he retired because he wanted to go out with good reviews, but the first movie, while profitable, sits at 18% on Rotten Tomatoes. Maybe Caine owes his good friend Vin Diesel a favor, maybe he’s decided he’d rather go out on a big payday instead, or maybe he’s just bored. Regardless, there’s no telling how Kaulder and Dolan’s next mission could go.
