10 Years Later, The Housemaid Director Paul Feig Gives A New Update About A Possible Spy 2

Fans of writer-director Paul Feig are getting excited for his latest film "The Housemaid," which adapts a massively popular Freida McFadden book and stars Amanda Seyfried, Sydney Sweeney, and Brandon Sklenar. However, those same fans might also be jonesing for a sequel to a comedy movie he released a decade ago.

"Spy," the 2015 collaboration between Feig and his frequent collaborator Melissa McCarthy (put a pin in that) casts McCarthy as CIA desk agent turned super spy Susan Cooper, and it seems like it could definitely lead to a fun sequel. /Film's own Ethan Anderton spoke to Feig in the lead-up to the release of "The Housemaid" and asked about this very thing, noting, "Has the state of big screen comedies today kind of made it difficult for it to get any traction these days?

Feig, for his part, said it's a topic of discussion. "I mean, people talk about it all the time. I don't know. I don't know if the spy, the action comedy genre is the place to go right now," he replied.

Beyond that, Feig spoke to the fact that he's typically against sequels (yes, he addresses the elephant in the room), but that he has some thoughts. As he put it: 

"I used to say I don't want to do sequels, and then I did 'Another Simple Favor,' but that felt like five years, and we had an idea for a story that felt good. I definitely have an idea for a story for "Spy 2," but I don't know. I just don't know if that's the place to go right now. I'm having so much fun doing new things. And I'm so happy with 'Spy.' But sometimes to go revisit something, you kind of go, 'Oh, we should have just left good enough alone."

I admittedly say this as a really big fan of "Spy," but I think this movie definitely lends itself to a sort of "James Bond"-style franchise (although Melissa McCarthy would ideally always be the star). While that feels obvious because "Spy" is quite literally a parody of spy films like "James Bond," Paul Feig and his charming cast could almost certainly cook up something fun for "Spy 2."

Why do I say that? "Spy" is a great standalone movie, but it also could easily set up a sequel. When we first meet Susan Cooper, she's stuck at a CIA desk supporting field agent Bradley Fine (a spectacularly well-cast Jude Law), but when he's seemingly killed during a mission, Susan, who was not-so-secretly in love with Bradley, is devastated. After Bradley's assumed killer, socialite and heiress Rayna Boyanov (a truly astounding Rose Byrne in the world's largest wig), starts targeting other CIA field agents, Susan is hastily sent in to find Rayna in their stead because she's an unknown entity. 

At first, Susan comes off a bit bumbling and incompetent (which isn't helped by the increasingly dowdy disguises her boss, Allison Janney's Elaine Crocker, keeps sending her), but as it turns out, she's an exceptionally good spy, even when she's forced to team up with CIA spy and outright buffoon Rick Ford (Jason Statham, clearly poking fun at his own action movies). At the end of "Spy," Susan saves the day, but why can't she save more days and go on more missions? Honestly, I wouldn't complain at all — especially if it meant we would see Byrne's Rayna and Susan's best friend and colleague Nancy B. Artingstall, who's played by the brilliant Miranda Hart, again.

Melissa McCarthy is, indisputedly, one of the funniest performers working today ... but in the wrong movie with the wrong director at the helm, she can be woefully misused. With all due respect, I actually think this is particularly true of McCarthy's collaborations with her husband Ben Falcone; whenever he directs her, she seems to revert back to bumbling, plus-size stereotypes like in "Tammy" and "Identity Thief." When McCarthy works with Feig, though, she shines ... because Feig understands that the best way to deploy McCarthy is to let her play the smartest person in the room.

There's a genuinely funny caveat here, which is that in much of McCarthy's work with Feig — and I'm specifically thinking of "Bridesmaids," "The Heat," and Spy," shelving their "Ghostbusters" reboot for now — her characters are rough around the edges, to say the least, but they pretty much always get the last laugh. In "Bridesmaids," McCarthy's Megan is brash, erratic, and straight-up weird (she hits on a guy, played by Falcone, by asking him to feel the "steam heat" coming from her "undercarriage"), but it's eventually revealed that she has a wildly important job, access to the locations of nuclear bombs, and owns multiple properties due to her massive wealth. In "The Heat," McCarthy's Boston detective Shannon Mullins is similarly loud, stubborn, and pretty gross, but she's an incredible detective and loyal to a fault (even to her abjectly terrible family). Then, in "Spy," Susan seems ineffectual but ends up proving that her instincts as a spy are spot-on. Notice a trend?

If Feig and McCarthy can mount a "Spy" sequel, I'm all for it. As for "The Housemaid," it arrives on December 19, 2025.