Vertigo eyeing StreetDance 3, another Horrid Henry film

Speaking at the London 2012 Festival Film launch on Friday, Vertigo Films co-founder James Richardson has revealed that the company is looking to make sequels to several of its current projects and to establish them as franchises in the process

Richardson is one of the producers on What If, the London 2012 short directed by StreetDance duo Max Giwa and Dania Pasquini. The duo’s new feature StreetDance 2 comes out next week.

“If StreetDance 2 performs as well as we are hoping, we will work on StreetDance 3 as well,” Richardson confirmed.

Giwa and Pasquini are already committed to making Vertigo’s 3D musical Walking On Sunshine, which begins shooting in the autumn. StreetDance 3 is likely to follow after that.

Another Vertigo film, Nick Love’s The Sweeney is out in September. Again, if the film performs as expected, it will spawn a sequel.

Meanwhile, Vertigo’s English-language version of Pusher is envisaged as the first part of a potential trilogy while the company is also currently mulling over the prospect of a further Horrid Henry film. (The original made over £6 million at the UK box-office.)

Another Vertigo sequel is the follow up to Gareth Edwards’ Monsters (which Edwards himself is executive-producing.) This is at script stage with a director to be announced shortly.

“Because we are very happy with the films themselves, we feel confident enough to start having those discussions on the sequels, which is a very fortunate place to be. I hope we can find more franchises and more ideas like this. It’s what the British film industry needs. If we continue just making one film every few years then no-one can survive that,” Richardson noted.

Vertigo has played a pioneering role in shooting independent British 3D movies. In spite of the recent downturn in 3D movie attendance in the UK, Richardson re-iterated his confidence in 3D filmmaking. “All of us at Vertigo love it. As an aesthetic we like it…in the Far East where they are making all the [3D] TV sets, they are pushing 3D hugely. It is kind of being driven in a way that wasn’t expected. Games will be the big driver of 3D and (so will) TV.”

Richardson also paid tribute to Ben Roberts, the CEO of sales agent Protagonist (in which Vertigo is a partner) who is shortly to take over as head of the BFI Film Fund. “The BFI has got, for me, the perfect candidate. He (Roberts) is very sensitive to filmmakers, commercially savvy and politically wise. He is the perfect candidate for this and I wish him hugely well.”

Richardson said that Roberts “has done (at Protagonist) absolutely what he needed to do, which is to build and set up a commercially successful British sales company.” The Vertigo co-founder said “now it is about finding the fight candidate to take it (Protagonist) to the next stage.”