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Jason Statham will be back for "The Beekeeper 2"

By Chris Morgan | Last updated Feb 28, 2025 3:49 PM ET

Fans of trash cinema, rejoice! We aren't even saying that as a criticism. Every "Dumpuary" (the mildly-derogatory nickname given to January and February when studios tend to dump movies they have no hope for to get them off the docket) one movie seems to rise to the top of the heap. It's invariably nonsense, but people have a ton of fun and amid the true drek of Dumpuary said movie stands out.

"M3GAN" began life as a Dumpuary movie that clearly "understood the assignment" as it were, and now that movie has gotten a summer sequel. 2024's Dumpuary winner was "The Beekeeper," and now we have word that Jason Statham is returning for a sequel.

"The Beekeeper" starred Statham as a retired "man with a certain set of skills" (the actual details of any actual job truly don't matter) who goes on a violent revenge spree after his elderly landlady is scammed by phishers. Oh, and Statham is a beekeeper who lives in his barn. The movie isn't going for Oscars, Statham kills a bunch of dudes, and in the end it made $162.6 million off of a $40-million budget after a January release. That's a success story. It's also pretty perfectly in the Statham wheelhouse.

While Statham is back, director David Ayer is not. Ayer, director of "Fury" and "End of Watch", is being replaced by Timo Tjahjanto. Tjahjanto made a bunch of bananas Indonesian movies and leveraged those into directing "Nobody 2," the sequel to Bob Odenkirk's "John Wick" wannabe. Yeah, sounds like the right person for a movie about a vengeful beekeeper.

"The Beekeeper 2" does not have a release date yet, but the studio would be wise to stick to an early year release and not try a "M3GAN 2.0" and shoot for a summer release.

Chris Morgan

Chris Morgan is a Detroit-based culture writer who has somehow managed to justify getting his BA in Film Studies. He has written about sports and entertainment across various internet platforms for years and is also the author of three books about '90s television.

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