One genre that Hollywood loves franchising is action. The Fast & Furious movies are a prime example, but it goes back to properties such as The Bourne Identity. Jason Statham has been involved in many as well, reiterating he is indeed one of the entertainment industry’s biggest action stars.
He has carved out his personal niche in properties such as The Meg, The Transporter and The Expendables. Now, as Statham takes on the role of super-spy, Adam Clay, in The Beekeeper, he has a chance to add another franchise to his belt. The Beekeeper does feel like something more steeped in depth, as his mission goes beyond just personal vendettas.
The Beekeeper 2 Could Focus on Wallace’s Revenge
The Beekeeper ends with Clay taking down Derek Danforth and exposing his criminal empire — one that used US governmental tools to phish and rob people of billions globally. Notably, Derek’s head of security, Wallace (played by Jeremy Irons), was beaten up but left alive, as Clay taught him a lesson and wanted him to live with his sins. However, Wallace is a corrupt and morally bereft individual who doesn’t care.
Seeing as Derek contributed a lot to his finances, it’s easy to see Beekeeper 2 having Wallace using his assets in a quest of vengeance. He previously rounded up mercenaries, using connections from his time as the Head of the CIA. Sadly, Clay took them apart in a gory manner that fans of the John Wick series would like. But Wallace still has Minnie Driver’s Director Howard to mine for more CIA assets, as well as other private contractors he can hire. Wallace hates Clay with a passion, and seeing as he came off like the antithesis to the DCEU’s Alfred, one can envision him embarking on revenge after losing Derek, whom he considered a spoiled brat of a son.
With Wallace’s immense money, power, influence, and circle of friends, as well as a bruised ego, this could shape an engrossing, bloody second chapter. It would lead to Clay finding himself as the hunted, and not his usual apex predator role as the hunter. That said, Clay does have an FBI agent, Verona (played by The Umbrella Academy’s Emmy Raver-Lampman), backing him, so this could result in them officially teaming up. Clay was like a son to her mother, Eloise, who died due to Derek’s endeavors. This could further plunge Verona into a professional existential crisis of whether she’s better off changing the world with the feds, or alongside a black-ops one-man demolition crew in Clay.
The Beekeeper 2 Can Activate the Other Beekeepers
When Wallace tried to get help, he also pulled political strings, so the Beekeepers would send one of their own to contain the retired Clay. However, Clay murdered that assassin, which feels like when John Wick broke the Continental’s rules and had his own fraternity come after him. The stage is set for Beekeeper 2 to do similar damage control and have new, capable Beekeepers pursue Clay to keep him in line, or end him.
They wouldn’t want him exposing them, after all, nor would they want him causing too much strife on a political level. They are supposed to remain independent, but it does feel like they can be corrupted, too. This would go against why they were created. Seeing as Wallace has funds, it’s easy to have him poisoning the group morally, guiding the director and other Beekeepers to clean up their mess. It has been kept secret as to how they operate in the shadows and how they really view Clay, but again, it’s an opportunity to franchise this series like Denzel Washington’s The Equalizer.
No matter what, Clay has now become a threat to his own fraternity, paving the way for his colleagues to assess themselves in a nuanced story about code, honor and exactly what their purpose is. Clay does have some people there backing him, so this could easily make him a rogue like Jason Bourne, with a civil war inside his organization revealing dark secrets and puppet masters not even Clay knew existed. Either way, with Clay’s pedigree being quite elite, the Beekeepers would be challenged to find the right personnel for the job. Clay did gloat how the new faces weren’t up to the task, so just like how the MCU’s Red Room had to create Taskmaster to hunt Black Widow, the Beekeepers need to go a step further to find their trump card to take Clay out.
The Beekeeper’s Prequel Can Shed Light On the Group’s Past
Ayer has confirmed he has ideas on how to expand this franchise. But that doesn’t mean a follow-up has to be a sequel. A precursor narrative can help pad the foundation and mystery of the past. “We cracked the door a little bit into the Beekeeper world, and I would love to learn more about them. I’m extremely curious: Where do they come from? Who are they? How do they operate? What happened in the system?” Ayer said to Inverse. “Did it break? Did the Beekeepers break? Do we have to fix the Beekeepers? Who fixes the Beekeepers when the Beekeepers need fixing? It’s just an amazing mythology. There’s so much room to explore.”
John Wick explored a prequel story like this with The Continental, telling the origins of young Winston, how he rose to power in New York, and how rivals and allies came about. Such an approach can use Statham’s star-power to detail what he did in the years prior and why Clay seemingly ended up depressed and retiring on the farm. It may be he had to kill too much, or that the collateral damage got to him. While it’s fun seeing these heroes physically cut loose and the mental health aspect of things — as seen with Marvel’s The Punisher — is something that keeps fans engaged, too.
Apart from Clay’s lack of family life and how he became this assassin, fans can learn about the overlords, the foundation of the Beekeepers, and why they would see Clay as a problem later on — things touched on in the likes of Reacher where military people often question what they do, and for whom. Conversely, a prequel doesn’t need to use Statham. It can employ other actions stars to show the flaws in the system and how others like Clay went dark. It can also explore if there are backups to the Beekeepers. It feels like there needs to be a contingency plan in place in case the group breaks down on the inside.
A prequel can perfectly distill this precept and show that the Beekeepers’ drama runs deeper than Clay. This can set up crossovers the way Jeremy Renner’s Aaron Cross was supposed to meet Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne. It’s an approach that shows like The Terminal List have taken too, with such seedy organizations always leaving people wanting to learn more about their background and overall history. The Beekeeper definitely hints there is a lot more than meets the eye, with Ayer barely scratching the surface. Ultimately, a prequel can shed more light on if there is hope for Clay or if he is neck-deep in the belly of the beast, and part of the monstrous machine his kind was meant to fight.