Though it has been over a decade since Angelina Jolie first brought Evelyn Salt to life on the big screen, her epic spy thriller Salt is available to stream on Netflix, and pulling some major streaming traffic.
Sources even seem to indicate that a sequel is in the works, though no updates have been made public in recent months. And the project has likely been impacted by the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
Salt finished second at the box office to only Inception when it first hit theaters back in 2010, earning $294 million globally.
Regardless of whether or not Angelina Jolie gets the chance to star in Salt 2, there is clearly enough fanfare for the film to perform well. The original film opened to excellent box office numbers back in 2010, coming second only to Christopher Nolan‘s Inception, and far exceeding projected figures for its box office return. It earned close to $294 million when it was all said and done.
Salt also received generally positive reviews, with many critics expressing that the film does James Bond-style espionage better than the most recent Bond films of the time.
Angelina Jolie is Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent working to take down a larger conspiracy.
Salt stars Angelina Jolie as Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent who begins her journey imprisoned in a North Korean penitentiary. After performing a number of deep cover operations, she finds herself interrogating Russian defectors with CIA counterintelligence.
And after tangling with a cell of Russian sleeper agents known as “KAs”, Salt and her team uncover a plot to assassinate Russian President Boris Matveyev during an upcoming funeral for the recently deceased Vice President of the United States.
Obviously, such a plot could lead to an armed conflict between the two nuclear nations, with disastrous outcomes for the global population. Salt then finds herself embroiled in a plot to malign her as a double agent.
It leaves her to fight against both sides in the name of her own safety, against the combined powers of the Russian and United States spy agencies. The film sees Angelina Jolie’s talented Evelyn Salt take on such foes as Liev Schreiber’s Nikolai Tarkovsky.
The film serves as a reaction to the highly paranoid political landscape of the time, perfectly encapsulating the era’s fear and post-9/11 alarm. And this wasn’t her first foray into this kind of film either.
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Before Angelina Jolie first joined the CIA with Salt, she graced the screen alongside her then-husband Brad Pitt in 2005’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith, humorously portraying a pair of spouses each involved with warring spy agencies without the others’ knowledge. What ensues is an interwoven web of espionage that launched Jolie’s career as a leading woman to new heights.
In the years since Angelina Jolie wrapped filming on Salt, she has gone on to star in such films as Maleficent, Those Who Wish Me Dead, and Marvel‘s Eternals. Jolie also lends her voice to the character of Tigress in the Kung Fu Panda film series, alongside the all-star cast of leading voices including Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Ian McShane, and Everything Everywhere All At Once‘s James Hong.
In addition to Angelina Jolie’s rumored appearance in Salt 2, the star also has four upcoming films in various stages of active development. Jolie is expected to reprise her leading roles in a third installment of the Maleficent film series as well as the upcoming Kung Fu Panda 4.
Jolie is also set to lead the film Maria, which has her playing famed opera singer Maria Callas, focussing specifically on her tragic final days in Paris in the 1970s.
Angelina Jolie’s upcoming movies include Maleficent 3, Kung Fu Panda 4, Every Note Played and Maria.
Angelina Jolie is also set to star in the upcoming drama Every Note Played alongside Christoph Waltz. The film is set to follow a piano player diagnosed with ALS, as well as his estranged ex wife who is forced with the task of caring for him in his ailing state. Though each of these films is a far cry from Salt, they serve to provide a glimpse into Jolie’s inimitable range.
As the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes rage on, there’s no way of knowing if or when Angeline Jolie will be able to bring Salt 2 to the big screen for her droves of fans.
Of course, the original Salt from 2010 is available to stream on Netflix now, allowing those who missed the film’s original run to catch up. With the modern political landscape of 2023 looking as dicey and paranoid as ever, it seems like a perfect time to bring Evelyn Salt back to the big screen.
