Paul Feig’s “Another Simple Favor” will open the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival on March 7. This is the sequel to 2018’s playfully entertaining “A Simple Favor.” The original’s stars, Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick, are back for the second instalment.
“A Simple Favor” tackled widowed mommy vlogger, Stephanie (Anna Kendrick), who befriends the secretive Emily (Blake Lively). When Emily suddenly disappears, Stephanie takes it upon herself to investigate, uncovering dark secrets about her friend’s past. In the sequel, a murder transpires at Emily's extravagant wedding to an Italian businessman in the island of Capri, Italy.
It was just last November that Feig was hoping the sequel, helmed by Amazon/MGM, would be theatrically released after “through the roof” test screenings. That will sadly not be the case as today’s press release indicates a straight to streaming date set up on May 1. Feig must be bummed.
The first ‘Simple Favor’ had a small budget of $20M and grossed close to $100M worldwide, and that’s before it ended up getting a much larger audience on streaming. Sadly, since we’re in the middle of what’s being dubbed as the “streaming wars,” Amazon sees too much potential for the sequel to expand its platform’s audience and viewing numbers.