Ico II

Ico II (internationally titled Ico II: The Legend of Rayu) is a 2023 American 3D dark fantasy neo-noir action-adventure film produced by Sony Pictures Animation. The sequel to 2019's Ico which in turn is based on the 2001 video game of the same name. It features an ensemble cast of Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Noah Jupe, Noah Schnapp, Nicole Kidman, Rihanna, Dylan O'Brien, Hailee Steinfeld, Daniel Kaluuya, Jon Favreau, Keri Russell, and Mahershala Ali whom all reprise their roles from the original along with new additions to the cast consisting of Geoffrey Rush, Bill Skarsgård, Gary Sinise, Sharon Stone, Liam Neeson, Daniel Craig and Dane DeHaan. In the film, Ico and his squad must team up with the legendary warrior Rayu and an old friend of Ico whose name is Melvin after a mysterious race of monsters dubbed "The Qunters" attack the village.

Sony and del Toro confirmed production of the film would begin after the overperformance of the original film in China as well as it's bigger than expected opening weekend in the United States. Guillermo del Toro was originally unable to return due to his commitments to directing Nightmare Alley and Pinocchio until the COVID-19 pandemic allowed him to freely come back to direct after finishing his previously mentioned projects. Principal photography had begun by early July 2021 with the cast returning from the previous film and concluded by mid-April 2022, with filming taking place in Atlanta like the original film as well as on live-location unlike the first film in Australia as well.

The film premiered in Los Angeles at the Dolby Theater on January 30, 2023, and is expected to be released in the United States on February 10, 2023, in IMAX and 3D formats. It received generally positive reviews from critics who praised the direction, performances particularly DeHaan's but criticized the plot with most critics calling it inferior to the original.

Synopsis
Four years after defeating Queen Michigore, Ico and Yorda who are now a couple live peacefully until a new clan of warriors titled "The Qunters" attack the village, its up to Ico and his team to stop them while undercovering new secrets of the village with help coming from a mysterious warrior who reveals himself to be the legendary warrior Rayu and Ico's old friend Melvin.

Cast

 * Finn Wolfhard as Ico, A young boy with horns who is now the village prince.
 * Millie Bobby Brown as Yorda, The daughter of the late Queen Michigore who is Ico's girlfriend and the village princess.
 * Noah Jupe as Rex, a wander who has mutant abilities.
 * Noah Schnapp as Melvin the Wander, a youthful teenage orphan who wanders the world.
 * Nicole Kidman as Margli, a youthful elf who was the caretaker of Ico when he was a child.
 * Rihanna as Eva, a former slave of The Queen who is now the leader of the army of the village.
 * Dylan O'Brien as Larz, the more-known son of the Queen, and Yorda's older brother, who is heavily trained in kung fu and suffers anxiety.
 * Hailee Steinfeld as Mono, a young newly wedded woman who is wealthy and bullied Ico in the first film but ended up changing her ways and befriending him.
 * Daniel Kaluuya as Whizzaro, the music elf of the village who uses his piccolo to lure and harm enemies.
 * Jon Favreau as Sir Roderick, a clumsy knight who is the proclaimed hero of the village.
 * Keri Russell as Venex, a tomboy woman who is the head of the Guardian Knights.
 * Geoffrey Rush as Zalm the Great, the fallen ruler of the Yorkin tribe.
 * Bill Skarsgård as Weno, a dwarf scavenger.
 * Gary Sinise as Stone Fang, a wolf pack warrior who hunts Colossi.
 * Sharon Stone as Queen Abeshura Barbarossa, the new Queen of the Kingdom and Queen Michigore's successor.
 * Daniel Craig as King Harold Wilde, the new King of the kingdom.
 * Dane DeHaan as Rayu, a legendary warrior with mystic powers that was always spoken about in the prophets who also holds magic abilities as well as great fighting skills with his mythical axe. DeHaan wore a motion-capture suit for this role as well.
 * Liam Neeson as Pelagia, a monsterous Colossus creature who runs the forest of the kingdom. Neeson did the motion-capture and voice of this character as well.
 * Mahershala Ali as the voice of Argo, the magical stallion who is Ico's go-to for transportation to any destination.

Jason O'Mara reprises his role as Que, Argo's younger stallion brother, while del Toro returns to play Willem Ford, a bounty hunter who was trying to kill Ico but now sides with Ico and his friends. Larenz Tate and DC Young Fly also return from the previous film as Washington and Jackson, two mythical descendants of the shadow realm. Christian Bale plays Gioshea, a dark magic warrior who Rayu kills at the beginning in the intro flashback. Ryan Gosling plays a wandering civilian during the final battle in a brief cameo; he is credited as Unknown Person in the credits. Harrison Ford reprises his role as Oggoth in a brief dream sequence while archive footage from the original film is shown. Emma Thompson, Andy Serkis, and Ving Rhames all portray Queen Michigore, Shihriax, and Lord Triton respectively through archive footage. Tara Strong voices Talor, a miniature elf with a short temper who Ico saves from the Qunters. Vrelops, Eclops, Scirevti, Scoriob, the quadruplet brothers of Pelagia, are voiced by Fred Tatasciore, Stephen Fry, Bradley Cooper, and Terence Stamp respectively.

Additionally, Laura Dern and Tim McGraw both play an odd couple who scold Ico after he destroys their home during his fight with Zoele. Margot Robbie plays Zoele Blain, a witchress who terrorizes the kingdom at the beginning of the film.

Development
After Sony and Disney broke their Marvel deal with Spider-Man in August of 2019, producer Ari Arad discussed with Sony around that same time about a possible trilogy of Ico films and discussions about a sequel to Ico ahead of the film's release that would feature the Wanderer character of Shadow of the Colossus. The inclusion of the character was later confirmed following the character being featured in the film, being played by Noah Schnapp and having the name of Melvin and a different Wanderer that was closer to the one featured in the game, being played by Noah Jupe. By the film's release, Sony later green-lit a sequel, with writers Philippa Boyens and Christina Hodson returning to write a screenplay. At the time of the start of production, director Guillermo del Toro was unable to return to directing the film, due to his commitments with the live-action remake of Pinocchio by Disney with Sony initially searching for a new director with the possibility of Andy Serkis directing which coincidentally would be the second Sony sequel he directs after Venom: Let There be Carnage. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which delayed production of the live-action remake, it gave the option for del Toro to return to direct the Ico sequel. At the time of the announcement, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Noah Jupe, Nicole Kidman, Rihanna, Noah Schnapp, and Mahershala Ali, were all slated to return to reprise their roles in the sequel, with Wolfhard and Brown having a three film contract.

In June 2021, del Toro expected filming to begin at the beginning of 2022. By August, Josh Brolin was believed to be in the running to portray an all new character named King Harold Wilde, who would have a major role in the film. Testing of actors for another new character, had also begun by October, with the shortlist of actors under consideration including Will Poulter, Ashton Sanders, Antony Starr, Timothée Chalamet, Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Pattison, and Christian Bale.

Writing
The first completed draft from Boyens and Hodson was expected around June 2020; multiple had been completed by January 2021. The pair felt a responsibility to explore how Ico and his friends live after defeating the Queen while getting prepared for a new threat that is way more darker than the Queen. By the next month, the studio was still not happy with the script, with Boyens and the writers "bunkered down ... trying to cross the finish line and create something everyone is excited to make" while also incorporating occasional moments of humor like the first film. Goddard joined them as a consultant. Reese, Wernick, and Reynolds were credited for the script, the three having split the film's scenes between them before passing them around to be re-written by the others. Reese felt they were able to maintain "one voice" because of their long history with the character during development on the first film.

Ico II is set "more or less" years after the ending of the first, and focuses on "a coming of age story with love and violence" for Ico while going for a original story rather than based on a videogame like the first film was. Leitch felt that retaining these personal stakes was more compelling for audiences than trying to build the film around global stakes. The writers felt that the sequel was tonally similar to the first film, but wanted to explore a different theme by focusing on "friendship as well as values in life or death situations" as Ico himself is growing up and fully mastered the sword he stolen from the dungeon. An early idea was to have the film begin 10 years after the first and explore Ico as a whole grown up, but later defeated the purpose of the trilogy which was to "show Ico growing up from a young boy to a full on adventurer" similar to the way that the How to Train Your Dragon films were set up.

Earlier versions of the script included prominent roles for the characters Shihriax, but was later revealed to be cut due to Shihriax not having importance in the sequel as well as the character being locked in prison for his crimes. The villain Pelagia, from Shadow of the Colossus was also included in early drafts, but was cut due to the villain of the movie already being strong enough although it was later announced that he would be a secondary villain of the story with Liam Neeson confirmed to playing the character via motion-capture by April 2022. Boyens fought to include more aspects of Rex's backstory in the film after the writers chose to mostly ignore it due to it being convoluted, but later won and ended up having Rex's backstory being included. The film will also reference various Team Ico games as well.

Pre-production
Del Toro and Hodson confirmed in January 2021 that Nicole Kidman's Margli, Rihanna's Eva, Hailee Steinfeld's Mono, Jon Favreau's Sir Roderick, and Dylan O'Brien's Larz would be returning from the first film to reprise their roles with Steinfeld concurrently recording Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Princess Joanna and the Four Kingdoms as well while giving the film a November 23, 2022 release date. By the beginning of March 2021, Christian Bale had been in the running to portray Rayu, but no longer could due to a scheduling conflict. Timothée Chalamet had screen-tested for the role, and Miles Teller was believed to be in negotiations for a part in the film, potentially Rayu. Del Toro announced shortly after that Noah Schnapp would reprise his role as Melvin the Wander from the mid-credits scene as well as Noah Jupe reprising his role as Rex while Daniel Craig was confirmed to be playing King Harold Wilde, a new character. Bale was in the running to portray Rayu again later in the month, and was considered the frontrunner ahead of a shortlist that also included Teller. Ryan Gosling was also considered for the role, but had "moved on". Del Toro soon addressed the potential casting of these actors, saying Bale "would make an incredible Rayu ... If that happens, I would be through the roof"; and on Gosling, "We had a great meeting with Ryan, he was incredibly interested in the property. Things didn't work out schedule-wise [but] I think he would've made an amazing Rayu". Bradley Cooper was also approached by Del Toro to appear in the film, even meeting together to discuss a role, but Cooper declined it; Del Toro and Cooper would later collaborate that year in Nightmare Valley (2021). At the end of March, Keri Russell confirmed her return from the first film as Venex, and expressed interest in giving the character a more bigger role as well while having her own taste of "the action in the film" as well as Daniel Kaluuya confirming his return as Whizzaro. Dane DeHaan emerged as a "surprise contender" to play Rayu in April, ahead of Bale and Teller, and was officially cast in the role; DeHaan previously worked with Sony as Harry Osborn / Green Goblin in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) and described this role as a redemption role from the mixed reaction to his incarnation of Green Goblin in the 2014 film.

Also in April, Jason O'Mara confirmed that he would be reprising his role as Que, Argo's younger stallion brother from the first film while Sony pushed back the release date to May 19, 2023. Noting the release date, Del Toro ensured that the film would be "a big and worthy summer tentpole movie, despite some potential competition" although he stated that this release date wouldn't be guaranteed as well as promising audiences that the film would be bigger than the first film. In May 2021, Sony was reportedly deciding to film the movie on-location along with a green-screen, departing from the completely green screen filming of the previous film.

Filming
Initial filming had begun by June 17, 2021, on a blue-screen stage in Atlanta, like the first film with IMAX cameras being used once again. Principal photography began in Atlanta, on June 26, under the working title Banana Boat. Some sequences, were filmed live on set in Australia such as some major battle scenes unlike the original film with motion-capture being used once again. Jonathan Sela served as cinematographer for the film. At the end of June, Boyens revealed that Daniel Craig had been cast in the film. The next month, Millie Bobby Brown said that he found the sequel to be more darker than the first film, and that "it's not going to be the same movie in a same but darker location [like Avengers: Endgame]. It's got different stakes, different things happen, some pretty tragic, brief scares and dark tones happens in the first part of the film, in the beginning, and the rest of the film is kind of dealing with that." By then, Ali had been working with del Toro on set, and expected to continue contributing to Argo through to April 2022. Unlike the first film, Wolfhard and Brown both didn't experience any scheduling conflicts with Stranger Things, which allowed them to be on set more.

Post-production
Sony revealed in November that the film was technically untitled at that point, and not officially known as Ico II as had been assumed; the studio was temporarily referring to the film as The Untitled Ico Sequel. Also in January, the film's release was moved up to May 19, 2023. And later by May of 2022, it was moved up to, February 3, 2023, which is it's current release date.

In June of 2022, it was confirmed that Geoffrey Rush, Bill Skarsgård, Gary Sinise, and Sharon Stone were all revealed to have main roles in the film albeit disclosed roles and production returned to Atlanta for six days of reshoots under the working title Colossus. Some reports emerged by mid-May claiming that these reshoots were due to poor audience responses during test screenings of the film, and consisted of sweeping changes. However, the film was soon confirmed to be testing better than the original did, up to a near perfect score of 99 out of 100 over three different tests (compared to a maximum score of 95 during tests of the first film). Because of this, the reshoots were adding more of the elements that audiences responded positively to, including additional material featuring Rayu and Pelagia. Sam Hargrave joined the film as a stunt coordinator for the reshoots, trying to "breathe some new life in a couple of sequences". The film's first full trailer officially titled the film Ico II, and revealed that Rush had a role in the film and confirmed that Bill Skarsgård also had a role.

In September 2022, actress Laura Dern as well as Stephen Fry and singer Tim McGraw were revealed to have undisclosed minor roles in the film. In October 2022, del Toro announced the runtime to be around 3 hours as he stated that he hopes "audiences resonate with the longer runtime as I chose this to fully tell the story with it's slightly moderately fast pace", however that was proven false as Sony Pictures Entertainment stated that the official runtime would be 156 minutes. That same month, Sinise, Stone, Skarsgård, and Rush's roles were revealed to be Stone Fang, Queen Abeshura Barbarossa, Weno, and Zalm the Great respectively.

Animation and visual effects
Like the first film, Sony Pictures Imageworks, who did the animation for the previous film, also provided the visual effects, which were supervised by Robert Legato, Elliot Newman and Adam Valdez. The film utilizes "virtual-reality tools", per Visual Effects Supervisor Rob Legato. Virtual Production Supervisor Girish Balakrishnan said on his professional website that the filmmakers used motion capture and VR/AR technologies, with the production team combining VR technology with cameras in order to film the remake in a VR-simulated environment. Along with the live-action actors, animated characters via motion capture and through the huge team of visual effects were used to give the film a realistic look similar to Lord of the Rings. Kristin Aasen served as the VFX coordinator of the film as well as the animation coordinator of the film where visual effects for motion-captured characters such as Pelagia and fully animated characters like Argo and Que. Additionally, Sony Pictures Imageworks as well as Framestore, provided visual effects and animation for those characters as well. Liam Neeson was on set to provide motion-capture for Pelagia while Andre Tricoteux and Neil Newbon were on set for reference to animate the characters of Argo and Que.

Release
The film is scheduled to be released on February 10, 2023 in 3D, IMAX, and IMAX 3D formats after previously being scheduled for November 23, 2022 and May 19, 2023.

Unlike the original film, the film will be released in Arab world countries (including Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the United Arab Emirates), as well as in Malaysia and Kazakhstan.

Marketing
The film's official teaser trailer was attached to IMAX screenings of Stella: An Angry Birds Movie and was later released online on August 23, 2022. The teaser trailer received 172 million views in its first 24 hours of release more than double the amount that the first film received around that same time frame. The official trailer was released online on November 2, 2022. A five minute sneak preview of the film was posted on YouTube by Sony Pictures on December 1, 2022. The final trailer was shown at the Game Awards on December 8, 2022 and released online that same day.

Home media
In April 2021, Sony signed deals with Netflix and Disney for the rights to their 2022 to 2026 film slate, following the films' theatrical and home media windows. Netflix signed for exclusive "pay 1 window" streaming rights, which is typically an 18-month window and included the sequel Araceli II; this deal built on an existing output deal that Netflix had signed with Sony Pictures Animation in 2014. Disney signed for "pay 2 window" rights for the films, which would be streamed on Disney+ and Hulu as well as broadcast on Disney's linear television networks.

Box office projections
In the United States and Canada, Ico II will be released alongside Magic Mike's Last Dance and is projected to gross at least $180 million in its opening weekend. By the week of the film's release, projections were increased to as much as $210 million in its opening weekend. The film made $16 million in Thursday night previews, the second biggest for the month of February.

Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 77% of 503 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Ico II doesn't recapture the magic that the original gave, but it offers a poigant experience that audiences will enjoy." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 57 out of 100, based on 58 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Sequel
As stated in plans in 2018, a trilogy of Ico films was announced with a later third and final Ico film being green-lit depending on the performance of the second film. Wolfhard has stated himself that he predicts it to be a "Dark Knight Rises-like trilogy ending capper" with it expected to be the darkest film out of the trilogy as well as being the longest.

Spin-off and additional films
Team Ico and PlayStation Productions have teamed up to announce that other games from Team Ico would be adapted and various spin-offs of the main Ico trilogy would be made as well.

On October 11, 2020, it was announced that the spin-off film based on Shadows of the Colossus is in production with Noah Schnapp reprising his role as Melvin the Wander as well as Vin Diesel voicing Melvin's companion Margous (a renamed version of Argo) while Joaquin Phoenix, Tim Roth, and Elle Fanning were cast as Lord Emon, Dormin (via motion-capture), and Marian (a renamed version of Mono to avoid confusion with the Mono in the Ico trilogy).