Michelle Yeoh Reveals Why “There’s No Sequel” to “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” broke nearly every barrier imaginable in the film world with its groundbreaking debut in 2022, followed by its epic award season run this year. From its best picture Oscar win to increased visibility for Asian performers in Hollywood, the blockbuster movie opened up more doors for diverse storytelling on the silver screen. But, sadly, it seems “Everything Everywhere All at Once” will be a one-of-one kind of project, as lead star Michelle Yeoh recently revealed there won’t be a follow-up to the A24 feature film.

“There’s no sequel,” said Yeoh, who played Evelyn Wang, rejecting the idea during an interview with Variety (published on May 21) at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. “We would just be doing the same thing.”

Yeoh isn’t the only “Everything Everywhere All at Once” star to shoot down the concept of a sequel. On July 3, 2022, directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert clarified that news of a specific sequel was “not true at all” after IndieWire published an article about the filmmakers teasing an idea for a follow-up film about parents “radicalized” by social media.” “Don’t even remember making this joke,” the Daniels wrote in a tweet. “Must have been back in March when the idea of a sequel was especially comically far fetched to us.”

The exact quote, which came from Kwan during an interview with Sight and Sound, stated, “Actually, if we ever were to do a sequel to this movie, it would be about Evelyn getting radicalized.” “And then Joy would have to go out and save her mom,” he added of Stephanie Hsu’s character.

Related: Stephanie Hsu Shares the Lessons Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan Taught Her

Previously, in a May 2022 interview with Newsweek, Kwan said he and Scheinert were exploring options of both a sequel and another original project in the future, though he didn’t share further details. “We will see what happens. We’ll see what the universe greenlights first, but we’re actively exploring all of it,” he added.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” stars Yeoh, Hsu, and Ke Huy Quan in the sci-fi multiverse saga that finds Evelyn (Yeoh) tasked with saving everything and everyone in existence amid trying to finish her taxes. Her wild adventures in the movie involve her hopping between various universes, including one where she’s a movie star, as well as Hsu’s Joy posing as Jobu Tupaki – a destructive agent of chaos out to destroy all in existence. And in between that, Quan plays Evelyn’s husband and Joy’s father, Waymond Wang, who struggles to get by with the family’s laundromat business while trying to save his failing marriage.

Though “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is chaotic, at its core, the film is rooted in love, as its ending shows that despite things falling apart around us, we can bear through them with loved ones and others by leading with kindness. There’s no telling what an “Everything Everywhere All at Once” sequel would look like, so it’s probably best that it remains a standalone movie for now.