Adam Wingard attends the Los Angeles Premiere of A24's "Onslaught" at Regal LA Live on August 26, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. Monica Schipper/Getty Images Logo text For more than a decade, genre fans and journalists have badgered Onslaught director Adam Wingard for a sequel to The Guest.
His 2014 thriller may have been a critical hit and commercial dud, but the now-cult classic, combined with You’re Next’s theatrical release the year prior, led the studio system to draft him into the franchise machine by way of Blair Witch, Death Note, Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Along the way, he also developed a Face/Off sequel, a ThunderCats movie and several other studio projects in between his produced films.
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Whenever he’d promote one of his IP-based projects, the Alabama native could count on being asked about a return to his roots, particularly in the form of The Guest 2. Wingard’s Guest brain trust — longtime creative partner Simon Barrett and star Dan Stevens — fielded the same questions, too, often resorting to variations of the same canned answers.
By April 2022, a new standardized response had emerged, courtesy of the April Fool’s Day release of The Guest 2 original soundtrack. Yes, they’d commissioned an OST for a movie that didn’t exist, but its cover art, track titles and music offered just enough clues for fans to imagine what might come next. The original film’s tantalizing ending saw Stevens’ unhinged super soldier, known by the alias of David Collins, limping away in a firefighter disguise after going on a killing spree through Moriarty, New Mexico, mostly to protect his top-secret identity.
One of David’s victims was Lance Reddick’s Major Richard Carver, the liaison between the U.S. military and KPG, a defense contractor first referenced in You’re Next. The real soldier behind the assumed identity of David Collins had suffered a spinal injury in combat before volunteering for KPG’s military-sanctioned Project Aegolius, a medical experiment designed to shut off his pain receptors and give him conscious control over his adrenaline. Instead, the procedure transformed him into an unstable super-soldier — capable of being magnetically charming one moment and dangerously chilling the next.
The soundtrack’s illustration depicts The Guest’s four surviving characters, including a mysterious silhouette in a wheelchair — a not-so-subtle hint at Wingard and Barrett’s plans to bring Reddick’s Carver back for a direct Guest sequel, which was gaining momentum during post-production on Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire as of late 2022. Carver’s comeback would have been quite the swerve, considering he died from exsanguination after David severed an artery in his arm. To make matters worse, the high school recreation center where Carver’s body lay became engulfed in flames.
Tragically, Reddick himself passed away in March 2023, prompting Wingard to reconsider the project. “Unfortunately, when Lance died, that slowed us down from making a direct sequel to The Guest,” Wingard tells The Hollywood Reporter. “It didn’t quite feel right after he passed because all of our ideas up to that point included bringing [Carver] back in some weird fucked-up way. So it was very sad, and it pushed us in a different direction.”
Prior to preproduction on Godzilla x Kong, Wingard, after a day of writing Face/Off 2 at Barrett’s place, had a hankering for some tacos. When he crossed the street to make his way back to his car, he was struck by a moving vehicle, resulting in a litany of physical injuries that he had to recover from while making another $150 million MonsterVerse movie. Six months after the accident, Wingard and his partner also found themselves expecting a child out of the blue.
Between the trauma of a hit-and-run and the anxiety of impending fatherhood, the idea for Onslaught, Wingard’s most personal film to date, began to take shape. He initially considered self-financing a $200K version of the movie, but when he brought the concept to Barrett, they quickly realized they could turn it into a gonzo action-horror film inspired by John Carpenter and James Cameron.
During Godzilla x Kong‘s postproduction, the door hadn’t been shut yet on completing a Godzilla x Kong trilogy. Filmmakers who’ve made successful franchise films often want to take a page out of Christopher Nolan’s playbook when he made The Prestige and Inception in between Batman films. Wingard also hoped to make “one for me” before helming what is now 2027’s Godzilla x Kong: Supernova, but it’s much harder to slow the franchise train down in the 2020s compared to the 2000s. So Wingard amicably parted ways with Godzilla’s keepers in order to reconnect with the types of films that first put him on the map.
“We tried to make it work. But they had a deadline that they just couldn’t budge on. So it was a Sophie’s Choice situation,” Wingard says. “Ultimately, I’d been doing franchise-IP pictures for over ten years. I felt like I was losing my voice, and I felt like people didn’t know who I was as a director anymore. You’re Next and The Guest were two films that best represented me and what my style is. And since they had been so many years ago, I needed a return to form.”
Onslaught was now free to become Wingard’s reintroduction to independent genre cinema. The film centers on a traumatized former Army sniper named Celeste (Adria Arjona), who must protect her 7-year-old daughter, Daisy, and her trailer-park community from three relentless super soldiers who’ve escaped from a nearby secret base, à la David Collins in The Guest. But unlike David, this monstrous trio is designed to indiscriminately kill anyone and everyone in their path.
Not wanting to completely abandon their plans for a Guest 2, Wingard and Barrett set Onslaught near the same town of Moriarty. Celeste’s Windy Oasis mobile home park is only a short distance from the clandestine facility where Dr. Hans Kammler bred the now-rogue killing machines. The added twist is that Stevens plays the aforementioned mad Nazi scientist, giving him a dual role in the KPG-verse — and inevitably raising the question of whether Kammler and David Collins are related.
“There definitely is a correlation there. It’s definitely something we want to explore [further],” Wingard says. “The secret base that David escapes from before we meet him at the beginning of The Guest is definitely related to the same base that we see Kammler working at here.”
After David killed 43 people in The Guest, one can surmise that KPG had no choice but to close up shop. Wingard confirms that remnants of the organization are very much behind Onslaught’s more unyielding super-soldier program.
“We don’t mention KPG directly because they’re using a different faction in this movie. They’re called the Priapus team. It’s a throwaway line in the film, but it’s also teeing up something that will come into play later,” Wingard says. “When you asked [about Kammler being the K in KPG], Priapus, that’s the P. Kammler, that’s the K.”
Below, in a conversation with THR, Wingard also discusses how Drew Starkey’s Cyrus serves as the stand-in for Reddick’s Carver in Onslaught.
***
When we last spoke for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, I remarked that it felt like you’d left it all on the field with that one. But you seemed more open to a trilogy than I expected. So was your decision to step away simply a case of wanting to do something else first, while the studio wanted to keep the pedal to the metal?
Yeah, honestly. It’s not like I was kicked out of the MonsterVerse. We tried to make it work. I was like, “Look, I really want to do Onslaught. I really need to do a movie that’s totally my thing.” But they had a deadline that they just couldn’t budge on. So it was a Sophie’s Choice situation because I really felt a lot of ownership and love for all the characters in the MonsterVerse. I knew the story that I wanted to tell next, and we were all on board and in sync about where we were going to go with it.
Ultimately, I’d been doing franchise-IP pictures for over ten years. And at a certain point, I was like, I love doing these things. These are the types of movies that made me want to make films in the first place, but I’m playing by somebody else’s pre-established style rules in the filmmaking.
I felt like I was losing my voice, and I felt like people didn’t know who I was as a director anymore. You’re Next and The Guest were two films that best represented me and what my style is. And since they had been so many years ago, I needed a return to form. I needed to really cut loose and do my own movie. I needed to get final cut. I needed to make sure that every decision, good or bad, is going to be mine, so that’s how we ended up here.
Thank you for making that decision.
(Wingard gives a knowing laugh.)
Dan Stevens as “David Collins” in Adam Wingard’s The Guest Courtesy of Sundance I’m one of many journalists who’s hassled you, Dan Stevens and Simon Barrett to make a Guest sequel over the years …
The idea of revisiting The Guest, especially Dan’s character of David, is still something that really appeals to us, and maybe one of these days we’ll be able to get around to it.
We did a faux Guest 2 soundtrack back in 2022. It’s a fictionalized score that was created for a Guest 2 that didn’t exist. Funnily enough, Onslaught composer, Matt Pusti, has a band called Makeup and Vanity Set, and he contributed to that soundtrack at the time. And during post-production on Onslaught, we had a couple scenes where we weren’t really sure what to do, musically. So we just started playing his tracks from the Guest 2 soundtrack, and we discovered that they fit perfectly. We then took those tracks apart and reused them about three or four times as a running motif. So the Guest 2 is literally embedded in Onslaught in both a literal and a weird technical way too.
What was the conversation en route to a more indirect sequel within the same universe?
The big inspiration for Onslaught started with me becoming a father and unlocking all the fears that come with fatherhood. Your whole reality changes when you have a kid. Development then started while I was finishing the last Godzilla film, and I knew more than anything that I wanted to tell the story of a parent who wasn’t ready to be a parent. After spending so many years making these very technical, franchise-IP movies, I wasn’t telling my own story. But in a weird way, I didn’t really have a story to tell until I had a kid. So that gave us a great framework and a starting point to create a really wild ride out of it.
I also have a lot of weird interests, especially in conspiracy worlds. I’ve always been fascinated with that era right around the end of World War II. We brought over Nazi scientists through Operation Paperclip and had them work for us. So Onslaught quickly became a really great vehicle to explore all my interests, and it is the first movie I’ve made that really fully shows my worldview, for better or worse. That might weird people out when they watch it.
I wanted to make something personal at the end of the day. Luckily, for audiences, my version of personal is what I like to call an A-plus-B movie. It’s a movie that satisfies in all the ways that a B movie satisfies, but with the sheen and the experience that comes from having made slick, polished productions.
Dan Stevens as Dr. Hans Kammler in Onslaught Courtesy of A24 Speaking of Nazi scientists, Dan plays Dr. Hans Kammler in Onslaught. Does the K in Kammler represent the K in KPG? (KPG is the defense contractor that was first referenced in You’re Next. The Guest then depicted its headquarters as its board members and military partners, such as Lance Reddick’s Major Carver, tried to cover up and contain the escape of Stevens’ super-soldier test subject, “David Collins.”)
That’s a really good question. I’m just going to say yes because I like where you’re going with that. Kammler was a real guy in World War II. He was one of the notorious Nazi scientists that went missing at the end of the war. Everybody said that he committed suicide, but the common belief is that he faked his death to come work for us. We then hid who he was because his war crimes were too extreme to whitewash, but his experience was something that we needed. So we turned that idea into a character, and Dan plays his lineage.
Kammler and his ancestor in the photograph resemble the soldier we know as David Collins. Is David’s real identity that of a Kammler?
That’s also a really good question, and there definitely is a correlation there. It’s definitely something we want to explore [further]. This film takes place in and around Moriarty [New Mexico], which is where The Guest takes place. So the secret base that David escapes from before we meet him at the beginning of The Guest is definitely related to the same base that we see Kammler working at here.
If David Collins was created via KPG’s Project Aegolius, do you consider Kammler’s current experiment to be Project Aegolius 2.0?
(Laughs.) They’ve moved on from that. That’s the reason why we don’t mention KPG directly because they’re using a different faction in this movie. They’re called the Priapus team. It’s a throwaway line in the film, but it’s also teeing up something that will come into play later. But when you asked [about Kammler being the K in KPG], Priapus, that’s the P. Kammler, that’s the K. So we’ll see.
If Kammer and David are related, we can infer that Kammler saved his family member’s life from his combat-related spinal injury and experimented with his pain receptors in the process. (David’s injuries were explained by Carver in The Guest script, but that exposition was cut down in the actual film.)
David definitely got the better end of the super-soldier program. He still got to keep his charm and his good looks. Unfortunately for the Onslaught guys, they ended up being a little bit more of the Frankenstein aspect of it. They’re blunt-force instruments of war.
Keil Zepernick, Alex Pereira, Steven Shelby Kekoa as Super Soldiers in Onslaught Richard Foreman/A24 Were there any other direct connections you considered or cut out?
There are other Easter eggs, but those are better left for people to uncover themselves. And it’s not just The Guest. There are some ties to You’re Next as well because we see this as a trilogy, both thematically and somewhat literally, even though there’s no direct character overlap. Each film has its own voice, but there’s definitely overlap, style-wise, in terms of the approach to music and the reality that the films exist in.
Is Drew Starkey’s character the Major Carver of this movie? Is he in the same liaison position that Carver was?
Yeah, that’s a really astute point. [Starkey’s Cyrus] is like the Carver character. Honestly, if Lance Reddick hadn’t died, I actually think that we would’ve brought him back in that role. We talked about it early on, and we literally said exactly that: “If Lance was alive, it would’ve been cool for Carver to come back and be intermixed into the film.”
Carver is obviously a very different character than who Drew plays, and I really love what we ended up doing with him. We got to create this totally wild character that is on MDMA the whole film. Cyrus is a character that I don’t know we would’ve come up with before the Epstein reality. But now that you read the files and you see just how insane those intergovernmental workings are, it pushed us and gave us permission to go way more wild. Even so, we’re nowhere near as crazy as what happens in real life.
Drew Starkey’s Cyrus in Onslaught Richard Foreman/A24 Are you saying that Carver would’ve somehow survived David’s box cutter and the high school fire?
That would’ve been the plan. We created this really elaborate cover art for the Guest 2 soundtrack, and there’s a silhouette in a wheelchair on it. The idea was that we were going to bring Carver back, but he was going to be all fucked up. Unfortunately, when Lance died, that slowed us down from making a direct sequel to The Guest. Had he not died, we might have been more willing to go into a direct sequel, but it didn’t quite feel right after he passed because all of our ideas up to that point included bringing him back in some weird fucked-up way. So it was very sad, and it pushed us in a different direction. We ultimately wanted Onslaught to be tied in [with The Guest], but not directly in that way.
Michael Biehn also plays a G-man who keeps tabs on Kammler’s work. I heard you’ve got more plans for Michael coming up. Is it too soon to talk about that?
It’s maybe a little too soon, but I did get him to start growing his hair out. If he looks a little wild right now, that’s my fault.
As mentioned, you officially had final cut for the first time on Onslaught. How would you describe the dynamic between you and the studio when you have the ultimate say?
They still give you notes, but as a filmmaker, you have this power behind your decision-making. You know you can ultimately veto anybody’s notes. I loosely had final cut on You’re Next and The Guest. I don’t know if it was defined contractually or as clearly as what I have now. I was less experienced in those days, but there was always a bit of an understanding that we were going to figure it out together. So I made those movies, and I never felt like I was pushed in a direction I didn’t want to go.
In the studio world, you always have this sword hanging over your head that could drop at any second. I’ve never had my movies recut or anything, but there’s always this feeling of, If you’re not willing to explore every option or you hit an impasse, there’s going to be some problems. Like I said, I’ve never had anything taken away, but you have to look at things differently than you would on a movie like Onslaught.
I would say, “Okay, here’s a crazy idea that I feel passionate about and really want to do, but I know that if I go all the way with it, I’ll lose the studio.” So I’d have to hedge my bets and say, “I know that I can probably get away with 75 percent of this idea.” You then start there, and sometimes, that idea gets whittled down to 50 percent once you actually present it. That process compounds over the production, and while you’re ultimately left with what is your movie, there are enough compromises in places where you would’ve taken it way further. With Onslaught, for better or worse, the purity of my vision is on screen.
A24 still had some really great thoughts and notes that we took. Sam Hanson, our A24 producer, was like, “What do you think about doing a title sequence that helps give the audience some more context?” At first, I was against it because all of my Godzilla movies had title sequences, and I felt like I’d already done that. Then I started thinking about it, and once we came up with a really cool idea to bridge the history of the military-industrial complex, I now say, “Well, thank God we did it, because the movie wouldn’t be the same without the title sequence.” So that note led to one of my favorite things in the film.
Well, I hope this isn’t our last trip to the KPG-verse.
I agree. I’m ready for another one.
*** Onslaught is now playing in movie theaters.
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