Madelaine Petsch Rewrote The Strangers: Chapter 2 Every Day — And Scored An Executive Producer Credit
Madelaine Petsch wasn’t just the face of The Strangers: Chapter 2; she earned an executive producer credit by grinding through daily script edits and poring over shot lists.
Renny Harlin did the very Renny Harlin thing and shot an entire Strangers trilogy in one go. There was a moment when Lionsgate looked ready to drop all three movies in 2024. That did not happen. Chapter 1 hit theaters in May 2024, and Chapter 2 is now set for Friday, September 26, 2025. Here is why the pause button got slapped, and how Madelaine Petsch went from final girl to executive producer along the way.
How we got from a 52-day sprint to a year-long wait
Harlin and company blasted through principal photography on all three films in 52 days. After Chapter 1 made enough money to justify it, Lionsgate sent the team back for extra shooting: eight days of additional photography for Chapter 2 and 15 days for Chapter 3. They also folded in viewer feedback from the first film while they were tweaking and expanding things. That combo of new footage and course-correction pushed the release plan back. Honestly, shooting a whole trilogy that fast and then deciding to refine it later feels inevitable.
Madelaine Petsch did the work, then got the credit
Petsch signed on to act, showed up with script notes, and never stopped. She and producer Courtney Solomon were reworking pages after wrap each day and building shot lists with Harlin. That hands-on grind turned into an executive producer title on Chapters 2 and 3 — not as a negotiating perk, but because she was in the trenches shaping the movies.
"I got offered this credit because I was actually doing the work... it was not a vanity credit."
Where the new trilogy is headed
Chapter 1 follows Petsch’s character on a cross-country move with her boyfriend (Froy Gutierrez). Their car dies in Venus, Oregon, they crash at a secluded Airbnb, and three masked strangers make their night a living hell from dusk till dawn. Harlin says that one is intentionally close to the original film’s setup. Chapters 2 and 3 widen the scope — what happens to victims after this kind of attack, and who these killers are, where they come from, and why they do what they do. Lionsgate’s whole pitch with the sequels is to take the story into new and unexpected territory.
The essentials
- Release timing: The Strangers: Chapter 1 opened May 2024; The Strangers: Chapter 2 opens Friday, September 26, 2025.
- Production sprint: Trilogy shot in 52 days; additional photography added later — 8 days for Chapter 2, 15 days for Chapter 3.
- Cast: Madelaine Petsch (Riverdale), Froy Gutierrez (Cruel Summer), Rachel Shenton (All Creatures Great and Small), Gabriel Basso (Hillbilly Elegy), Ema Horvath (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power).
- Filming location: Slovakia.
- Producers: Courtney Solomon, Mark Canton, Christopher Milburn, Gary Raskin, Charlie Dombeck, Alastair Birlingham.
- Executive producers: Andrei Boncea, Dorothy Canton, Roy Lee.
- Co-producers: Rafaella Biscayn, Frame Film SK, Johanna Harlin, Juan Garcia Peredo, Alberto Burgueno.
- Creative notes: Harlin says Chapter 1 mirrors the original’s home-invasion setup; Chapters 2 and 3 explore the aftermath and the perpetrators’ origins and motives. Viewer feedback from Chapter 1 informed the sequels’ added footage.
Early word is... mixed
Despite the extra shooting and story expansion, critic Tyler Nichols at JoBlo slapped Chapter 2 with a 4/10. Ouch.
Bottom line
Chapter 2 finally lands on September 26, 2025, now with fresh footage and Madelaine Petsch wearing both star and EP hats. Curious to see how deep this trilogy goes into the lore, or are you good with one night of masked mayhem per decade?