‘Heart Eyes 2’ Takes the Valentine’s Killer to a Thailand Wedding: The January Shoot, the Script Tease and Everything We Know

Happy Friday the 13th. The best horror news of the morning has nothing to do with Jason. The masked killer from Heart Eyes , the Valentine's slasher that hunts couples and only couples, is reportedly packing for a destination wedding. A new report says Heart Eyes 2 starts shooting in Thailand in January 2027, and director Josh Ruben just teased a fresh draft of the script, propped up next to the killer's mask, on social media.

That puts the sequel in front of cameras about 14 months before its February 4, 2028 release date at Paramount. Below we cover everything confirmed (and what's only reported), who's back, how the first film really did at the box office, why the jump from New Zealand to Thailand matters, and whether a slasher that made $33 million can grow into a real franchise.

Watch: There's No Heart Eyes 2 Footage Yet

Heart Eyes 2 hasn't shot a frame, so there's no teaser or trailer. We also couldn't verify a copy of the original film's trailer on Sony Pictures' own YouTube channel this morning, and we don't embed fan re-uploads. When Paramount drops the first official look (a Valentine's 2027 tease a year out would make sense), we'll post it here. For now, the faces and the facts will have to do.

Photo: Josh Ruben via Wikimedia Commons ( author and license), cropped.

The Details: What's Confirmed and What's Reported

Let's sort the solid from the soft, because this story has both.

• Release date (confirmed): February 4, 2028, a Friday, from Paramount. The studio first set it for February 11, 2028, then moved it up one week in September 2026, which gives the film the full run-up to Valentine's Day (a Monday in 2028) instead of opening on top of it.
• Director (confirmed): Josh Ruben returns.
• Writers (confirmed): Ruben and Darcy Fowler wrote the screenplay from a story by Christopher Landon and Michael Kennedy, two of the original film's three credited writers.
• Producers and money (confirmed): Paramount and Spyglass Media Group are producing and financing alongside Landon and Divide/Conquer, and Paramount handles distribution worldwide.
• The shoot (reported): Luminate's November 2026 greenlight list, posted November 3, lists Heart Eyes 2 with an approximate January 2027 start in Thailand, with Ruben directing and Olivia Holt in the cast.
• The plot (reportedly): According to The Cinemaholic, the killer comes back for Ally and Jay while they attend the destination wedding of Ally's best friend, Monica, in Thailand. Paramount hasn't confirmed any story details, and Luminate's own listing says plot details are under wraps.
• The cast (reportedly): Olivia Holt as Ally McCabe, Mason Gooding as Jay Simmonds and Gigi Zumbado as Monica. Holt and Gooding were both reported in talks to return earlier this year. Zumbado's return currently rests on that single report.

The freshest piece is the script tease. Per Dread Central, Ruben posted a photo of the screenplay beside the killer's mask with nothing but two heart-eyes emoji as a caption. The title page reads "Current draft" and carries the Ruben/Fowler and Landon/Kennedy credits, which lines up with what the trades reported in April. It's a small thing, but a director publicly flashing the cover page is about as close to "we're making this" as you get before a studio press release.

What's not on the list: Devon Sawa and Jordana Brewster, who played the two detectives chasing the killer in the original, and Michaela Watkins, who played Ally's boss. None of them has been reported for the sequel. Given where the first film leaves its characters, we won't guess.

Who's Behind It

Josh Ruben, director and co-writer

Ruben came up at CollegeHumor, where he wrote and directed a pile of its Originals shorts, and that comedy timing is all over his horror. His feature debut, Scare Me , premiered at Sundance in January 2020 and landed on Shudder that October with an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes. He reportedly paid for part of it out of his own retirement savings. His follow-up, the Ubisoft adaptation Werewolves Within , premiered at Tribeca in June 2021 and earned an 86% from 148 critics, though IFC's limited release grossed under $1 million on a $6.5 million budget. Heart Eyes was his first wide studio release, and it made more than 30 times what Werewolves Within did. Paramount also has him lined up for the horror film Wilderness Reform , so the studio is clearly betting on him beyond this franchise.

Christopher Landon, story and producer

Landon is the genre's reigning king of the high-concept slasher comedy. He wrote Paranormal Activity 2 , 3 and 4 , wrote and directed The Marked Ones , then directed Happy Death Day (2017), which turned a $4.8 million budget into $125.5 million worldwide. He followed it with Happy Death Day 2U (a February 2019 release, worth noting) and Freaky. He was briefly attached to direct Scream 7 in 2023 before stepping away that December. Heart Eyes is basically his formula with a Valentine's card attached: one gimmick, one mask, lots of jokes, real kills.

Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding

Holt has quietly become a genre regular. She was Dagger on Freeform's Cloak & Dagger for two seasons, led the mystery series Cruel Summer , and played the young Pam in Prime Video's time-travel slasher Totally Killer (2023). Gooding is Scream royalty at this point: Chad Meeks-Martin in Scream (2022), Scream VI and Scream 7. The Cinemaholic also reports he's slated for Crawl 2 , due July 16, 2027, which would put him in two horror sequels inside seven months. Their chemistry as two coworkers mistaken for a couple was the part of the first film critics liked most, so getting both back matters more than any kill.

Photo: Gigi Zumbado via Wikimedia Commons ( author and license), cropped. Zumbado reportedly returns as Monica, whose wedding sets the sequel in motion.

The Backstory: From Sony Pickup to Paramount Sequel

The first Heart Eyes was a Spyglass and Divide/Conquer production, written by Phillip Murphy, Landon and Kennedy and produced by Landon, Greg Gilreath and Adam Hendricks. It shot in New Zealand in June 2024. Distribution got split: Paramount's Republic Pictures picked up international rights in June 2024, and Sony took North America that September, releasing it through Screen Gems on February 7, 2025.

The sequel timeline moved fast after that:

• January 2026: Dread Central reported Ruben had turned in a sequel script. Nothing was official yet, and there was no cast or date.
• April 22, 2026: Paramount set Heart Eyes 2 for February 11, 2028, taking over domestic distribution from Sony's Screen Gems and extending its partnership with Spyglass.
• September 2026: The date moved up a week to February 4, 2028, with Holt and Gooding reported in talks.
• November 3, 2026: Luminate listed a January 2027 start in Thailand.
• November 12-13, 2026: The Thailand wedding premise surfaced, and Ruben posted the script.

By the Numbers

• Budget: a reported $18 million.
• Opening weekend: $8.3 million from 3,102 theaters, beating its $7-8 million tracking and finishing No. 2 behind Dog Man.
• Valentine's weekend: $9.9 million, up 19% in its second weekend. Horror almost never goes up in weekend two. This one did because the calendar was the marketing.
• Total: about $30.4 million domestic and $32.9 million worldwide. International was only around $2.5 million.
• Reviews: 78% on Rotten Tomatoes from 159 critics, 61 on Metacritic, a B- CinemaScore.
• Runtime: 97 minutes.

Analysis: Why Thailand, and Why Paramount Wants This

Here's the uncomfortable math. Heart Eyes made $32.9 million worldwide on an $18 million budget. Once you count marketing, that's not a theatrical windfall. Compare it with its two closest relatives. Landon's own Happy Death Day turned $4.8 million into $125.5 million. My Bloody Valentine 3D , the last Valentine's slasher to really break out, turned $14 million into $100.7 million in 2009, with nearly half of that from overseas. Heart Eyes did almost nothing outside North America.

So why is Paramount paying for a sequel and taking over the domestic release? Three reasons, as we see it.

One: the date is the brand. Valentine's weekend is one of the few spots on the calendar where a horror movie can be both counterprogramming and a date-night pick. Heart Eyes proved that with its second-weekend bump. Owning that weekend every few years is worth something, the way Blumhouse owned Halloween-adjacent October for a decade.

Two: Spyglass and Paramount have a playbook. They're the same pairing behind the Scream revival, and TheWrap notes Scream 7 grossed $213.4 million worldwide. Heart Eyes is cut from the same cloth: a masked killer, a whodunit, a cast that winks at the audience. It even shares a lead with Scream in Gooding. If Paramount can grow Heart Eyes the way Scream grew from 2022 to 2026, a cheap sequel is a smart bet.

Three: the Thailand move fixes the weakest number. A destination-wedding premise is a classic sequel trick (new setting, bigger set pieces, same characters), and it hands the marketing team postcard images instead of another office park. More importantly, a sequel with one worldwide distributor from day one should do far better than $2.5 million overseas. The first film's split release, Sony at home and Paramount abroad, likely didn't help. One studio selling it everywhere is the real upgrade.

The risk is just as clear. The first film worked because of the joke at its center: a killer who only targets couples chasing two people who aren't one. Spoiler-free, the obvious question is what that joke becomes now that Ally and Jay's relationship has moved on. A wedding is a smart answer, because it's a building full of couples, but slasher sequels that just relocate the kills tend to get diminishing returns. Happy Death Day 2U took a big swing at changing genres and made roughly half what the original did. Ruben's comedies have always had more heart than their premises suggest, and that's the thing to protect.

What We Still Don't Know

• Whether Paramount officially confirms Thailand, the wedding plot and the January 2027 start, or whether the details shift.
• Formal casting announcements for Holt, Gooding and Zumbado, and whether any other original cast members are back.
• New cast: a destination wedding means a guest list, which means a lot of new suspects (and victims).
• The budget, and whether the overseas shoot pushes it past the original's $18 million.
• A rating. The first film was rated R, and nobody expects that to change.
• When we get footage. A teaser around Valentine's Day 2027, a year out, is the obvious play.

Bottom Line

Heart Eyes 2 is moving faster than most horror sequels. It has a date, a director, a finished draft, a reported location and a reported premise, all for a movie that's still more than 14 months away. The first film was a modest hit with a gimmick, a great date and two leads people liked. The sequel's job is to turn that into a franchise, and moving the killer to a Thai resort full of wedding guests is a pretty good way to start. Just don't RSVP with a plus-one.

Your turn: Is a destination wedding the right move for the Heart Eyes Killer, or should the sequel have stayed home for Valentine's Day? Tell us in the comments.

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• 'Paranormal Activity' Moves to October 2027 and Goes Back to the Original House

Header photo: Olivia Holt by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons ( author and license), cropped with text added.

Sources: Dread Central (Nov. 13, 2026); The Cinemaholic; Luminate; TheWrap; Dread Central (Sept. 2026); Fangoria; Heart Eyes (Wikipedia); Werewolves Within (Wikipedia); Happy Death Day (Wikipedia); My Bloody Valentine 3D (Wikipedia).