Paul Feig shuts down rumours claiming 'A Simple Favor 2' got shelved

    Los Angeles, Jan 13 (PTI) Director Paul Feig has denied rumours that Amazon has pulled the plug on the sequel of his 2018 movie "A Simple Favor" due to the controversy surrounding one of the lead stars Blake Lively.
    Lively is in the middle of a legal fallout with her "It Ends With Us" co-star and director Justin Baldoni. There are also reports of a feud with her "A Simple Favor" co-actor Anna Kendrick.
    The comments by Feig, who directed the 2018 crime thriller "A Simple Favor", come after an "internet investigator" posted a thread on X about the studio shelving the sequel.
    In his response, the filmmaker said the shooting on the film is complete and the project is in the post-production stage.
    "This is total BS. Sorry. The movie is finished and coming out soon. Don't believe anything you read on social media these days," he wrote.
    When the investigator asked Feig to "clarify" why Amazon had not yet set a release date for the film when it wrapped last April, the director said post production usually takes over half a year to finish.
    "Our post schedule always had us finishing everything by mid-January. Movies don't come out the second they're finished because the studio spends the previous year deciding the best date to release it. We've always planned on something in the spring/summer of this year. That's how movies work. I hope this helps," he added.
    "A Simple Favor" was based on the 2017 novel of the same name by Darcey Bell and starred Kendrick as Stephanie Smothers, a small-town vlogger who tries to solve the disappearance of her mysterious and elegant friend Emily Nelson, played by Lively. The sequel was confirmed in May 2022.
    Lively recently accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and running a smear campaign to malign her reputation. Baldoni has denied all claims calling them false and the actor also filed a USD 250 million libel lawsuit against The New York Times, which published the article about Lively's allegations.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)