The Strangers Chapter 3 now carries a set release window. Director Renny Harlin has revealed that the next installment will arrive in early 2026, following the recent debut of Chapter 2. The team filmed the trilogy back-to-back, beginning with the first entry in 2024. This modern retelling reimagines the original story and features Madelaine Petsch in the lead role.
You won’t have to wait a year for The Strangers Chapter 3’s release date
Speaking at San Diego Comic-Con, Harlin told The Direct that The Strangers Chapter 3 will come out in 2026. “I would say that early next year is what it’s looking like,” he said, when asked about the release timing. He explained, “No, it won’t be this year. We are finishing it up right now, so it’ll be done by the time Chapter 2 comes out. Chapter 3 will be completely finished, but there’s no time before Christmas and everything.”
The director also described what audiences should expect from the trilogy’s conclusion. Harlin said Chapter 3 “goes into a very, very dark place,” noting, “these movies will gradually get more physical and mentally more disturbing as we go.” He emphasized that the consecutive production gave him an “incredible opportunity… to explore our main character for four and a half hours and see her mental situation completely changed from being a vulnerable girl in the first movie… and then what she turns into by the end of movie three.”
Petsch, who plays Maya, previously indicated that the trilogy would lean further into paranoia as the narrative progressed. Harlin confirmed that approach, promising a raw and realistic portrayal of Maya’s transformation.
Post-production on Chapter 3 is nearly complete. The film will serve as the final entry in the new Strangers saga. The trilogy followed a year-by-year schedule: Chapter 1 in May 2024, Chapter 2 in September 2025, and Chapter 3 in early 2026.
Deep Blue Sea, a big dumb movie about big smart sharks, is still an entertaining action horror 25 years after it first swam onto our screens.
Director Renny Harlin has had a wild career in action and in horror. There are highs (The Long Kiss Goodnight, Cliffhanger) and lows (Cuthroat Island, Exorcist: The Beginning). Deep Blue Sea didn’t exactly end up being lauded as a cheesy horror-laced gem like its fellow 1999 blockbuster The Mummy, but in the realm of shark movies? It’s still got teeth.
It sees researchers at an underwater facility trying to find the cure for Alzheimer’s disease by studying the regenerative qualities of sharks’ brains. Unfortunately, it’s crunch time for the project financially, and the head honcho, Russell Franklin (Samuel L. Jackson), is coming to see how close they are to a breakthrough.
It turns out they’re very close. However, in typical movie scientists’ thinking, the head researchers (played by Stellan Skarsgard and Saffron Burrows) dope the test sharks to achieve the result. Consequently, the Mako sharks are not only bigger and faster but smarter, too. So when a violent storm and a gnarly accident occur, the smart sharks take the chance to get out and chomp on any poor souls unlucky enough to be in the way. Therefore, the choices for the crew are simple. Get to the surface, drown, or get eaten.
The Shark Movie Problem
Make no mistake. Much like exorcism movies, Shark movies have been chasing an unattainable high for some time. Genre standouts that transcend said genre, such as Jaws and The Exorcist, make it extremely difficult to follow. I have genuinely lost count of how many times I’ve had hopes for a shark movie and been bitterly disappointed. And it’s been almost 50 years since Jaws and its mechanical shark set the benchmark. There have been a lot of frankly awful spins on the template in that time.
So, admittedly, the bar is pretty low for shark movies to clear beyond Jaws. There’s more to it than just because Jaws exists (the change in how sharks are perceived especially). But misunderstanding what made the idea of colossal monsters of the deep lurking beneath your feet in the ocean so damn terrifying is a big part of it.
While Deep Blue Sea is undoubtedly quite goofy at times and clearly uninterested in abiding by actual shark behavior (some of which is admittedly explained away by their enhanced abilities), it doesn’t forget the golden rule. Feed on the fear of the deep and the things in it.
The scenes underwater where the human crew are at the mercy of the killer beasts have tension to them. Especially those in open water where Thomas Jane’s grizzled shark wrangler Carter Blake plays a game of chicken. On a personal level, there’s a moment that filled me with dread that wasn’t inherently scary itself. Carter swims through a mesh tunnel in the facility’s caged-off section of the sea. When he arrives at its exit, the shot shows just how insignificant that tunnel feels in comparison to the cavernous blue murk surrounding it. Deep Blue Sea may be a largely daft chomper romp, but it has its moments to make thasalaphobia sufferers uncomfortable. Credit has to be given for the often superb use of space.
Disaster in the Deep Blue Sea
It also mixes in a little bit of the classic disaster movie format. After some shark shenanigans, the underwater facility begins to flood and crumble. The crew traverses all manner of perilous situations, trying to get to the surface whilst the sharks gain more ground (well, water). It may not have been enough on its own to make a competent disaster flick, but it adds something to the monster movie format that rules the movie’s structure. Also, it helps that the facility itself is a great setting.
Perhaps most importantly, Deep Blue Sea moves along with the same single-minded focus of a shark. It gets the guff out of the way quickly. From there, it’s a straight shoot of sharks vs. humans vs. crumbling undersea facility for over an hour. Pure popcorn delight.
I do not want to sound old, but the kind of film Deep Blue Sea is increasingly difficult to find in modern-day cinema. Sure, there are plenty of genuinely low-rent homages to the action/horror hybrid. The sequels are underwhelming proof of that. On this scale, there’s simply nothing quite like it. It may not have The Mummy‘s swagger, but it’s just as gloriously entertaining in its own way.
Director Renny Harlin won’t be involved in the upcoming Cliffhanger reboot, but he does hope the film sticks to the use of practical effects when they make it.
Speaking to ComingSoon, Harlin was asked about the fact that the 1993 film is getting remade. Harlin revealed he had actually been trying to get another film made “for decades.” While he isn’t sure what is happening now, he does hope that there isn’t an over-reliance on CGI, however.
“To be honest, I’ve tried for decades. I always felt the movie was hugely successful, and it was crazy that there wasn’t a sequel. There was more story to tell,” said Harlin.
“Now, of course, it’s a long time later, so I have no idea what kind of a story they are planning to tell or what Sly’s role in it is. But I wish them the best of luck. I hope they don’t try to replace what we did with a lot of CG. Because I think the audience will be able to tell that we did everything for real. We shot at 12,000-foot peaks in the Italian Alps. It was real stuff, like the opening sequence with the girl falling. It was done for real. That was at 8,000 feet, that wire,” the director continued.
“It’s so easy for the studios to say now, ‘We’ll do everything blue screen and create everything digitally.’ I hope they don’t do that because it deserves a sequel with the same spirit of the original.”
What to Expect in the Cliffhanger Reboot?
The Cliffhanger reboot will be directed and executive produced by Ric Roman Waugh, and adapted from a screenplay written by Mark Bianculli. Waugh is best known for his directorial efforts in Gerard Butler-led action films Angel Has Fallen and Greenland.
“Growing up with the biggest action films of the ’80s and ’90s, working on many of them myself, Cliffhanger was by far one of my favorite spectacles,” Waugh said in a statement. “To be at the helm of the next chapter, scaling the Italian Alps with the legend himself, Sylvester Stallone, is a dream come true. It’s going to be a great challenge and blast taking this franchise to new heights, a responsibility I don’t take lightly.”
The original Cliffhanger was directed by Harlin from a script co-written by Stallone. It revolved around Stallone’s Walker, a mountain climber haunted by past mistakes. In the film, Walker gets involved in a high-stakes heist as a group of international thieves try to locate their missing loot after their plane crashes into the mountain.
