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Jumper Director Talks About Ideas for a Sequel

by Alex Billington
February 18, 2008
Source: Collider

With Jumper well on its way to pass $40 million this week, if it continues at that rate, we could definitely see a sequel in the works. Without spoiling too much, the ending is certainly left open for a sequel, but it's not a requirement. With the power that the lead character David Rice has, the possibilities are nearly endless for what he could do next. One of the few that has popped up is time travel. The movie is actually based off of a series of books by Steven Gould, but only the story from one of them was used to tell the story in the first movie. Now director Doug Liman talks about some of the possibilities that could be seen in a sequel.

While not exactly the greatest sci-fi movie ever, Jumper is a solid film that is purely entertaining. If you're a sci-fi nut you can't help but watch it and consider the great number of other stories that could be told about jumpers with that much power. Doug Liman was interviewed over at Collider and he talks about what he could work into a sequel, whether it's time travel or another twist regarding the movie's other lead character Millie.

I actually have a ton of ideas for the sequel because this is whole new arena for me and so my mind was in overdrive the whole time and most of the ideas I came up with we either could tease or just save it for a sequel and so it's... this power can be used to leave this planet, this power can be used ultimately to go back in time, this power can be used if you go and work for the government you'd be the ultimate Jason Bourne.

How coincidental he mentions Jason Bourne, as Liman was the director who first introduced us to the character in The Bourne Identity. Liman also goes on to talk about a major spoiler that's part of the second book, so if you're curious to hear it and read on, consider yourself warned. "I guess people will read the 2nd book so they'll know, but Rachel Bilson's character learns how to teleport in the 2nd book." Liman explains that in this situation, people can learn the power, but with what was present in the movie, most will be thinking, that's not possible. He explains that in this first movie, they never really had that scene which lays the groundwork for the rules of the power and what it can or can't do.

We ultimately decided to say we're changing so many other sort of aspects of this genre like let's not do the rule scene because the rules don't ultimately...the limitations of this power ultimately don't factor into the finale, so we skipped the obligatory rules thing and also because this film is set in the real world and David Rice is not a physicist. He is not going to understand why he can teleport. He will never understand that, you know, different movie if you've got an MIT quantum physicist who discovers they can teleport. That guy will spend the movie conducting experiments on himself to understand it and understand how it's happening and what his limitations are. David Rice—not going to understand his ability to teleport the way Jason Bourne will never understand his amnesia.

Although Jumper wasn't extraordinary, some of these ideas would be very interesting to see in a sequel. I'm wondering if they got a new cast (throw out Hayden Christensen!) and some new screenwriters, could they whip up a story that goes to the extremes beyond this first one? Then create something like Terminator 2 where it's on a whole different level and becomes a whole different movie? Either way, the possibilities really are endless and it's unfortunate that the concept in Jumper wasn't explored further. I'm almost hoping to see a sequel just so we can see more of these ideas put to use.

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