‘Another Simple Favor’s Paul Feig Talks Threequel Chances & How To Make Comedy Theatrical Again

When screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis came aboard to co-write Another Simple Favor alongside franchise veteran Jessica Sharzer, she was met with a difficult task.

The question, she says, was “How do you match, let alone exceed, the level of absolute insanity in that first movie? How do you get to that point where people are really genuinely surprised, but don’t feel like they’re pulled out of the film?”

That question and more were answered by the film’s team — Kalogridis, Sharzer, director Paul Feig, producer Laura Fischer and editor Brent White — during a panel discussion at Deadline Studio at Prime Experience. Check out the conversation in the video below and scroll down for photos from the event.

Recently released on Prime Video, the new film from Feig is the sequel to A Simple Favor, a darkly comedic mystery from 2018 that grossed nearly $100 million worldwide and expanded its audience on streaming amid the pandemic. Anna Kendrick reunites with Blake Lively as Stephanie, a widowed mommy vlogger who, in the original film, became entangled in the mysterious disappearance of her glamorous best friend, Emily (Lively). The sequel takes audiences from the idyllic suburbs of Connecticut to the glamorous backdrop of the Italian Riviera, where an extravagant wedding unravels into a web of mystery, deception, and deadly secrets.

Early on in development, Feig knew he wanted to shoot on the Amalfi Coast, lassoing back in a sprawling cast thrown to the wind by the double strike while introducing compelling new characters. As Fischer recalled, “it was like a five-car pileup” to execute the project from the perspective of scheduling alone.

Yet the team leaned into the twists and turns of the journey, as Feig coached Lively through the process of playing multiple characters, who come together in pivotal scenes. The filmmaker had so much fun with the films he’s already hatching a third story in this world in the hopes of getting another film made before the passing of another seven years.

Laura Fischer, Paul Feig, Jessica Sharzer, Brent White, Laeta Kalogridis at the Deadline Hollywood Portrait Studio at Prime Experience 2025 on May 08, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.

Anthony Avellano for Deadline

Paul Feig at the Deadline Hollywood Portrait Studio at Prime Experience 2025 on May 08, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.

Anthony Avellano for Deadline

Jessica Sharzer, Laeta Kalogridis and Laura Fischer at the Deadline Hollywood Portrait Studio at Prime Experience 2025 on May 08, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.

Anthony Avellano for Deadline

Brent White at the Deadline Hollywood Portrait Studio at Prime Experience 2025 on May 08, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.

Anthony Avellano for Deadline

“The characters are fresh, and I like the places they’re in now,” he says. “They’re in very interesting places, just like the first movie put them in interesting places. And I think there’s just a lot more over-the-top international intrigue and style and fashion and crazy twists and turns to come.”

In conversation with Deadline, Feig — a comedy icon behind everything from Freaks and Geeks to Bridesmaids — also reflected on the staying power and future direction of his genre of choice, at a time when comedies have been deemed less than theatrical.

“Comedy is still definitely a group experience. But I think comedy at the moment — and look, you say this and then it changes the next day — but I think comedy has to be mixed in with another genre,” Feig explained. “Because I think audiences demand kind of a gravity and a stakes and a danger in the movies that they watch — whether it’s emotional danger, or physical danger, or whatever — and I think comedy plays best off of that.”