‘Ma’ sequel in the works with Octavia Spencer returning to Ma’s basement

Ma officially isn’t drinking alone, as Entertainment Weekly has confirmed a sequel to Octavia Spencer’s 2019 horror hit is in the works.

A representative for the Oscar-winning actress tells EW the star will return for the sequel to her Help director and longtime friend Tate Taylor’s cult smash, which followed a reclusive mother (Spencer) who, with sinister intentions, befriends a group of teens (played by Diana Silvers, Corey Fogelmanis, and others) in rural Mississippi.

No other details about the Ma sequel were available, outside of production company Blumhouse writing, “MA fans, lovers, and apologists, this one’s for you,” on social media. “Don’t make her drink alone this time around.”

Entertainment Weekly has reached out to representatives for Blumhouse, Taylor, and Silvers for additional information.

In 2021, Taylor exclusively told EW that he was toying with the idea for a sequel to the film, amid the original’s surge in popularity on social media.

“My idea is that she’s moved to another town, and she has open houses in another city and kills people in the open house,” Taylor explained of potentially switching up Ma’s profession from no-nonsense vet tech to killer realtor. “I think she’d be a real estate agent in the Pacific Northwest, and just murder white people looking at McMansions. That’s as far as I’ve gotten!”

He also expressed shock over the film’s popularity online.

“Can you believe how much Ma lives on? Isn’t that just crazy?” Taylor said during an interview for his film Breaking News in Yuba County, adding that he felt that Spencer — his friend and frequent collaborator — would join him for Ma 2.

“I don’t think we thought Ma was going to have this afterlife as this cult thing, and I think it’s worth discussing [a sequel]. I know Octavia would do it, that’s why I purposely left her death ambiguous!”

Since its debut in May 2019, Ma became a viral internet sensation, with social media consistently producing memes related to the film, including a movement where fans created comical photos that spliced Spencer’s character into other notable projects — which the actress herself eventually getting in on the joke and posting creations of her own.

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While the film gained a large underground following, it marked a special moment for Spencer in her career, who joined the project after she told EW she grew weary of seeing Black people “always” die in horror films.

“There are archetypes people only want to see me as,” she told EW at the time of release (“wise characters” wearing “period wigs and costumes,” as Taylor noted) “So I had to change that for myself [and] the next young woman of color to be able to play every type of role.”