Inbetweeners Movie sequel announced

Tuesday 21st August 2012 @ 12:49am by Aaron

The Inbetweeners Movie. Image shows from L to R: Neil Sutherland (Blake Harrison), Will MacKenzie (Simon Bird), Jay Cartwright (James Buckley), Simon Cooper (Joe Thomas). Image credit: Bwark Productions. Channel 4 has today announced that its film division has ordered a sequel to smash-hit film The Inbetweeners Movie, starring Blake Harrison, Simon Bird, James Buckley and Joe Thomas (pictured, L-R).

The first film, a spin-off from hit E4 teen coming-of-age sitcom The Inbetweeners, was a runaway success at the box office when it opened in August 2011 and is understood to have netted around £45 million to date - all from a budget of just £3 million. A release in US cinemas is due on 7th September.

Damon Beesley, the series and film's co-creator and co-writer (alongside Iain Morris) told The Sun today: "I don't want to give too much away at this stage but yes, we have been developing an idea for a sequel. We miss working with Simon, Joe, James and even Blake too much not to give it a go."

The newspaper reports that the stars are due to earn £2.5 million each from the follow-up, having been paid a relatively meagre £100,000 each for the low-budget original - although they all received £400,000 bonuses on the back of the film's success.

No further details regarding the new film are available at present, but The Sun claims a possible premise to be the boys reuniting for the stag do of Neil, played by Blake Harrison.

The news of a sequel will not come as too great a surprise to industry watchers, with the box office success of the first outing proving that cinema go-ers have a healthy appetite for home-grown British comedy films. A big screen outing for Alan Partridge is now in production; a Keith Lemon movie will be released this Friday; Harry Hill has revealed that he is working on a film script; and rumours about film spin-offs for shows including Red Dwarf and Absolutely Fabulous have been renewed - all since The Inbetweeners Movie's runaway success.

Here's the trailer for the original film:

Meanwhile, an American adaptation of the original sitcom The Inbetweeners launched last night (Monday 20th August) on the nation's MTV network. The trailer for the series has been met with significant disapproval from fans of the original series: