In it, fans get a look inside Emma’s new life while living with her aunt Angela.
Now that Emma is a teenager, however, a lot has changed in her world.
Yet the bad seed herself honestly hasn’t changed a bit: She’s still out for blood.
Mckenna Grace:We were in COVID, in quarantine, and stuck in an apartment together.
Ross Burge:March 2020 is when we started writing it.
We were like, “We should write a script.
What’s a script that we could write that we could get made, hopefully?”
And we were like, “Well, we know they want to do a second ‘Bad Seed.’
We didn’t tell them.
You all have a whole script?”
You said you were in Canada.
What was your process like writing together?
He has an Android, so I can’t FaceTime him, so I have to WhatsApp call him.
We’d WhatsApp and talk over the script and pinball ideas.
Everything got shut down.
[They high five.]
Burge:We came up with the idea.
He ended up mentioning something about a potential sequel when Mckenna was working on “Ghostbusters: Afterlife.”
We knew that whenever we finally opened up with some free time.
So we wrote a 96-page teleplay and [searched for] YouTube videos on how to write a teleplay.
Grace:[Laughs]
Burge:And download software.
Did any of your medical background come in handy for this script?
Burge:Yeah, initially.
When you kill people
Grace:Mark [Wolper, our producer]’s always messaging you.
Burge:You got to make it accurate.
Grace:It’s movie magic.
You have to do things on the fly and the scheduling and
Grace:It’s a movie.
Burge:And weather, and you’re like, “Alright.
This is just how it’s going to be.”
But initially, yeah.
Yeah, I think it helped.
So if this happened and you’d get crushed this way, would this be like this?"
And “What would happen if you broke someone’s leg?
What would it look like?”
[Laughs] And it’s like, “How would we do this?”
He’s like, “Instead of hiring a medical professional, we can just consult your dad.”
[Laughs]
What was the hardest part about putting together this script?
Grace:It was our first time, so that was difficult in itself.
[Laughs]
Grace:Formatting.
Yeah, I let you handle that one.
[Laughs]
Burge:I’m not an English major, but the idea part was easy.
We have ideas all the time.
The idea aspect of it was easy.
It was like, “Okay, so the first one ended how?
Now she’s with Aunt Angela.
Where can we go from there?
What situations can you put her in where Emma has to be Emma?”
Burge:Oh, tons.
It’s just really funny to think about that: that we came to them.
I’m like, “My dad and I have never written a script before.”
Then we came to them like, “Here’s your script.”
And they’re like, “This is a little bit too … How do I put this?
She wrote the first script.
I thought it was really cool.
Grace:That would’ve been fun.
[Laughs] I should have done that.
I should have said, “Let’s improvise the scene.”
Sometimes whenever an adult writes for a teenager, it doesn’t always sound … How do I say?
Burge:Mckenna had free reign and permission to change all the dialogue in whatever I wrote.
[Laughs]
Grace:[Laughs] They’re so bad.
We had a whole speech where I was like, “This is so fire.”
Burge:“That’s so fetch.”
Like, “‘That’s so fetch,’ said Emma.”
Grace:Emma said, “That’s so fire, you guys.
It’s lit.”
How did it feel to step back into Emma’s shoes after all these years?
Grace:It was really cool.
It’s fun to try and explore and have Emma balance all of these things.
She’s having to adapt and change for fit in.
Now she’s in a different home situation, different town, different school.
You see her in stark contrast to how she was in the first movie.
Did it feel different, Mckenna, to play her this time?
Grace:Oh, yeah.
And it felt way different because I wrote her this time.
It’s cool to be able to bring that to life and come back to Emma.
What do you think happened to Emma between the first and second movie?
Burge:It’s like she’s hibernating.
You see that happen, and you’re like, “Whoa.
So is she just … What is she?
What’s her motive this time?
What is she doing?
What was the reason?”
It sets it up to seem that Emma’s …
I don’t know, is she just killing to kill?
Then you see she’s living this comfortable life.
Burge:If you see the baby coming into it … She wants to build a circle around her so that her world’s pristine.
And she’s curated this social circle at school, and it goes from there.
You’re stacking up dominoes to fall.
In a potential third film, what would you like to see Emma do?
Who knows what she’s going to do?
Grace:We’ll see.
I feel like there’s so many fun ways that you could take Emma.
So many different roads.
What’s next for this father-daughter duo
What projects are coming up for you guys next?
Grace:Well, my dad’s upcoming projects are surgeries next month.
[Laughs]
Burge:[Laughs] Yeah, I got to go back to work.
Grace:We’ve been writing.
We’ve still been writing.
We’re working on a series right now.
We’re working on writing a series, and we’re in the midst of pitching that.
We’re still writing other films, coming up with ideas all the time.
I’ve been having a great time, and I have some other things on the horizon.
Burge:And you’re doing music.
Grace:And I’m doing music.
I think it’s really cool to be able to do that together.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
