The 2018 horror movie Truth or Dare may not exactly be remembered here in 2024 – fondly or otherwise – but it was actually a massive hit for Universal and Blumhouse in theaters. Made on a production budget of just $3.5 million, the horror movie starring Lucy Hale and Tyler Posey scared up $95 million at the box office, so it’s a bit surprising there was never a sequel.

But was Blumhouse ever planning on playing another round of Truth or Dare at the time? According to a new report from Variety, a wild sequel concept almost saw the light of day.

“We actually wrote a ‘Truth or Dare’ sequel,” director Jeff Wadlow, whose new movie Imaginary arrives in theaters in March, explains. “In the first one, there’s about nine characters and seven of them die. I didn’t want to do a ‘Final Destination’-style sequel or ‘Truth or Dare’ and it’s happening again to a different group of people. It just seemed kind of boring to me.”

So what did Wadlow want to do with a Truth or Dare sequel? He explains to Variety that an idea was born out of the real-life friendship between the cast members of the first film. They jokingly tossed around the idea of a meta sequel wherein they play themselves, and after the concept was pitched to Wadlow, he ended up writing a script titled Truth or Dare IRL.

“It begins with Markie and Olivia, Lucy and [Violett Beane’s] characters,” Wadlow says. “They’re in this scene, and it feels like our ‘Final Destination’ kind-of ‘Truth or Dare’ scene, and Markie starts laughing in the middle of it. You hear, ‘Cut!’ and the director walks on the set, and we do the ‘New Nightmare’ treatment where we reveal that Lucy and Violett are still friends. They’re going to go on this trip with the other actors from ‘Truth or Dare,’ with Tyler, Landon [Liboiron] and Sam [Lerner].

“Everyone who was in the first film, they’re all buddies, and we find out what happened is the writers of the first film had researched a real demon. Just as Calux can haunt a game in the film, he’s now decided to haunt a movie in the real world. It was scary and surreal and funny and played a lot with subjectivity.”

Long story short, the project was taken to Blumhouse, and Jason Blum ordered Truth or Dare IRL to be shot during the start of the covid-19 quarantine. Alas, the project fell through.

“The ship has sailed,” Wadlow says of the film’s chances of ever getting made.

In the 2018 horror movie, “A harmless game of “Truth or Dare” among friends turns deadly when someone—or something—begins to punish those who tell a lie—or refuse the dare.”