Will The Harder They Fall Get a Sequel?

This story contains spoilers.

The Harder They Fall delivers some serious gun-slinging, heart-pounding action, but in the end, the dust isn’t quite as settled as we think it is.

The epic western, helmed by Jeymes Samuel, focuses on two rival gangs led by Rufus Buck (Idris Elba) and Nat Love (Jonathan Majors). The former, an infamous outlaw, runs with bandits like Gertrude “Treacherous Trudy” Smith (Regina King) and Cherokee Bill (LaKeith Stanfield), while the latter wrangles a crew including saloon owner Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz) and sheriff Bass Reeves (Delroy Lindo). Nat is on a years-long revenge mission to take down Rufus, who brutally killed his parents when he was a child. After the two groups come head-to-head in a shootout that leaves many dead and the whole town of Redwood up in smoke, Nat is ultimately successful, but it appears there are some loose ends.

In the final scene, Nat (who learned that Rufus is his long-lost brother before killing him) rides off with Mary. Their surviving associate Cuffy (Danielle Deadwyler) decides to follow Reeves on sheriff duty. As the four disappear on horseback, a figure appears in the distance behind them. Without showing the person’s face, the final shot closes in on a hand carrying a bowler hat—Trudy’s signature bowler hat. It seems she survived her fight against Mary in Redwood (we didn’t actually see her die onscreen, anyway) and with most of her crew killed by Nat Love and co., she’s probably out for vengeance. But the film ends there.

Though a sequel to The Harder They Fall has not yet been confirmed, Samuel sets the ending up for one nicely. Is there a chance we’ll see Nat and Mary on the run from Trudy? Or perhaps a spinoff that focuses on Trudy’s backstory and misdeeds? Regardless, Samuel already has plans to expand the story, even as a trilogy.

“I’ve always imagined The Harder They Fall as a three-parter, as it were, a prequel and a sequel,” he told SlashFilm recently. “And I’ve always wanted to flesh out that story, but I’m always going to go to the Old West.”

He also explained that the ending was intentional, adding, “Without spoilers, The Harder They Fall always ended the way The Harder They Fall ended because I’m coming back, I’m coming back. Like those zombies that won’t go down [mimes gunshot noises] ‘bam, bam, bam.’ But they keep coming, ‘bam bam bam bam bam,’ they keep coming. That’s me with the Old West.”

Netflix might already be set to continue the THTF saga as well. “Our standard was: When it’s said and done, you’d be excited to watch a movie just about any one character, to follow them into their own story — either prequel, sequel or same time,” Tendo Nagenda, the streamer’s vice president of original film, told ABC News. “You like them enough to be compelled that you want to know more about them.”

King hasn’t chimed in yet regarding a sequel, but she has discussed how this project—especially its space in the Western genre—was new territory for her as both a viewer and performer. “It’s a space where I haven’t really gotten a chance to play as an actor,” she told Good Morning America. She added, “As an audience member, it’s a space that I don’t get to see this many—to see us as Black people, even though we are and have been a part of the Western culture, of that history.”

All the more reason for a sequel.

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