In Hollywood, a sequel greenlight takes months: parsing the legs, running the write-down math, workshopping a confidence statement for the town hall.
At Angel Studios, it took about 48 hours.
Director, producer, and co-writer Jon Erwin announced Sunday â in a video filmed at Mount Vernon, no less â that a Young Washington follow-up titled 1776 is already in the works, a Revolutionary War epic with the script underway right now.
Erwin opened the video by saying he was there to answer “the number one question” the team keeps getting about the movie.
“When people see it all over the nation, they love it. They cheer,” Erwin said, adding that one question comes up at every screening: is there a follow-up on the life of George Washington?
Standing at Washington’s own estate â “there’s no better place in the world to answer that question than right here” â Erwin delivered it: “The answer is yes. We are working on another one right now. We have just begun writing another Revolutionary War epic on the year 1776.”
“If you think Washington‘s big, wait for 1776. It’s epic in every way,” he continued, calling the sequel “another incredible chapter in this man’s life and legacy.”
The announcement landed before opening weekend actuals were even posted. That’s not a greenlight process. That’s a studio that already knows who its audience is.
The Record Behind The Greenlight
The reason for the confidence is simple.Â
Young Washington blew past its $15 million forecast with a $20.8 million opening â with an assist from Chris Pratt and his 55 million followers â making it the biggest live-action opening in Angel Studios history, per Deadline, and the studio’s second-biggest debut ever behind only December’s animated David ($22 million).
It even topped the three-day start of Sound of Freedom ($19.6 million in 2023), the movie that legged all the way out to $184.1 million domestic after Hollywood spent that entire summer explaining it away.
And on the Fourth of July itself, Young Washington was the No. 2 movie in America with $7.6 million, behind only Minions & Monsters at $9.4 million.
A $20 million-range history drama nearly outdrew the Minions on the holiday, the same weekend that franchise stumbled to a series low.
The Map Hollywood Doesn’t Program For
The demo data in Deadline’s report is the real story.
Per the trade, the Mountain, Midwest, Southcentral, and South regions drove 67% of the weekend gross, without a single premium large format screen.
The top-grossing theater in the country wasn’t AMC Burbank or Lincoln Square, the usual suspects on any big release. It was the Megaplex 18 at Thanksgiving Point in Utah, at $111K and counting.
Then there’s this: moviegoers over 55 made up 47% of the audience. That’s the demographic that has been slowest to come back to theaters since Covid, and the one nobody in Hollywood builds tentpoles for.
Angel got them off the couch on a holiday weekend, and they graded the movie an A CinemaScore with an 81% definite recommend.
Compare the timelines. DC watched Supergirl test in the 60s for eight months, released it anyway, and just watched it collapse 76% in its second weekend. Angel saw an A CinemaScore on Friday and had a sequel announced by Sunday brunch.
And per our insiders, it’s the same audience Disney is now courting. Netflix, too.
1776: The Obvious Movie Hollywood Never Made
The title tells you everything about the ambition.
The year 1776 is the Declaration, the retreat from New York, the crossing of the Delaware, Trenton â the single most cinematic year in American history, and no major studio has seriously touched the era since Mel Gibson’s The Patriot opened to $22.4 million over July 4th weekend in 2000 and ran to $113.3 million domestic.
Erwin, who also serves as Wonder Project’s chief creative officer, made the bigger ambition explicit, saying he hopes this is “the beginning of many extraordinary American stories told through film and television.”
That’s franchise talk. While Warner Bros. Discovery tallies its Supergirl losses, Angel and Wonder Project are quietly building an American history universe.
To be clear on what’s confirmed: the title, and that writing has just begun. No release date, no casting details yet.
But here’s some CBN math: Young Washington went from announcement to theaters in under a year, announced in July 2025 and shot in Ireland and Virginia that fall for a July 3, 2026 release.
If Wonder Project repeats that turnaround, 1776 hitting theaters on July 4th weekend 2027 practically writes itself, with the Revolution’s own 250th anniversaries rolling through the calendar for years after that.
One last detail. A day earlier, fans in Chris Pratt’s comments were begging for a follow-up that picks up right where this movie ends.
Twenty-four hours later, Erwin was standing at Washington’s front door telling them yes. Hollywood spends $120 million marketing budgets trying to manufacture that kind of demand. Angel just answered the comments section.
