There have been numerous films that have tried to play with the “superpowers in a realistic setting”, and Chronicle did it wonderfully. A rare instance where the found-footage approach actually works combined with the authentic characters created a well-defined and surprisingly powerful picture. The movie was a surprise hit, but original screenwriter Max Landis was booted off the sequel. Landis is a gregarious, opinionated, and vocal fellow, and he recently took to Twitter to describe what he envisioned for Chronicle 2. Landis’ take “elaborated on the ideas and situations from the first to create a different genre of movie,” in a way similar to Terminator 2, Aliens, or at worst, Grease 2.

Hit the jump for more details on what Landis wanted in his sequel. The screenwriter is currently at work on his directorial debut, Me Him Her.

Bleeding Cool compiled Landis’ tweets, where he describes some departures that probably made Fox uneasy:

Gone was the aspirational “what would you do,” gone were the pranks and bromance, gone were lovely tragic Andrew and hopeful, bright Steve.

In their place was a dark, frustratingly unblinking stare into a complicated world that posed the question is it worth it to be a hero, old from the point of view of a heartbroken and insane woman who would martyr herself to the cause of being the world’s first villain.

But the movie wouldn’t entirely leave the original behind, and Landis says “The most frustrating thing is that I don’t know if I’ll get the opportunity to explain what MOGO was or what he was doing in that cave.” He also explained that he wanted for the movies to eventually culminate in an “Avengers-type team up”.

I don’t know how well it would have turned out, but after Chronicle, I’m more than willing to give Landis the benefit of the doubt.