The Heat may get a spinoff about characters who are not The Heat

By Sean O'Neal | November 18, 2013 | 6:26pm

Aux Features Film

For those who enjoyed The Heat, but felt it spent far too much time on Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy, Fox and Paul Feig may have just the movie for you. Deadline reports that Feig is developing a spinoff of his summer hit that would shift the focus to Beth and Gina—as played by Upright Citizens Brigade duo Jamie Denbo and Jessica Chaffin—who were the members of McCarthy’s family who made a brief appearance in which they gave Bullock and the human ear a hard time with their Boston-accented grilling of Bullock’s character. An exact storyline is still being worked out, though a spinoff would allow Feig and Fox to circumvent Bullock’s reluctance to make a Heat sequel, despite its being automatically necessitated by making more than $200 million.

It remains to be seen whether similar success can be achieved by taking the Van Wilder: Rise Of Taj approach (as it’s known in formal screenwriting workshops; R.I.P. Syd Field), and focusing on characters not portrayed by those stars whose pairing was the entire appeal of the first film. Still, it is preferable to the Garfield Minus Garfield approach, where Feig just places a stationary camera in the middle of Boston.