Will The Amateur have a sequel? One scene from the film gives hope

This article contains spoilers for Rami Malek's The Amateur. Reader discretion is advised.

Rami Malek joins Laurence Fishburne in The Amateur, an action spy thriller from James Hawes, who was behind the first season of Apple TV+'s Slow Horses. The same experience comes in handy for his latest film, which follows the complicated journey of Charles Heller (Malek), a CIA cryptographer trying to avenge the untimely death of his wife, Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan), during a terrorist attack. While a vigilante thriller, the film also works as a brooding contemplation of grief.

It follows Heller's journey as an amateur sleuth who shows that he has enough chops to be a secret agent. He manages to kill three of the four people responsible for his wife's death. Eventually, he locates their leader, Horst Schiller (Michael Stuhlbarg). However, instead of killing him, Heller gets him arrested. It also helps him expose an underlying connection to his deputy director boss.

Based on these details, the audience might want a sequel. Well, they are not alone, since Malek himself shared his interest in a potential follow-up project. He told Entertainment Weekly,

"To take Charlie’s story into further iterations would be an absolute joy."

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What might lead Rami Malek's The Amateur up for a sequel? Here's what the director says

Director James Hawes is interested in exploring more of Charles Heller's life as a spy, especially because of a scene where Heller's mentor Hendo (Laurence Fishburne) seemingly reappears on the screen to meet Heller. That comes as a surprise since he almost died in a previous scene. In line with this, Hawes told EW,

"The best thing for me to come out of this [film] was the fact that, at the end of it, people were going, 'I have to see what happens to Charlie and Hendo next. And that was almost by accident — that last scene where they re-meet again was additional photography."

He also revealed how this scene sets it up for a potential sequel.

"That [scene] was not in the original script, but we felt that there was something so satisfying in that kind of tutor-mentor relationship that we could take that further. And we wanted the rounding off, we wanted the bookends, we wanted the satisfaction of learning that Hendo was still definitely alive, not just a question mark at the end of the movie."

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What can The Amateur sequel be about?

Rami Malek wishes to take his introverted but determined character's story forward. During a conversation with EW, he shed light on what they can cover in The Amateur sequel.

"There is room for many of these people to come back and for us to see what lies ahead for Charlie Heller. He is a battered, broken soul with so much vulnerability but an immense amount of strength that we could find avenues to venture into again."

Director James Hawes hopes to take the Heller-Hendo dynamic forward, almost like a multi-episode saga.

"The eventual development has got to be, and this is epic and classic, and it's in mythology, and it's in Star Wars, it's the gradual development of the teacher and the pupil, and the point at which the two reverse. Some element of that is already happening. But first of all, you'd want to see them as sidekicks — the least likely sidekicks ever. And it would be the strangest kind of buddy spy movie."

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Is Rami Malek's The Amateur getting a sequel?

20th Century Studios has not officially greenlit a sequel to Rami Malek's The Amateur yet. Whether it will have a follow-up project or not depends on a few factors, mainly on the audience response and its financial output. While speaking with EW, director James Hawes also said,

"The studio will think about it, obviously, and it depends on how people respond to it, but it just felt like that connection had much more traveling to do."