WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Adam Project, now available on Netflix.
Netflix’s The Adam Project painted a comprehensive time-travel story as Ryan Reynolds’ wisecracking Adam Reed jumped from 2050 to 2022 to prevent a dystopian future. However, by the time the film ended, the erasure of time-travel set up an interesting direction for a sequel with his quantum physicist dad, Louis (Mark Ruffalo), protecting the integrity of this new time-stream. But what would work even better for the franchise, adding more depth, motivation and action, would be a prequel based on the 2050 Adam fled from.
Adam told his younger self that the future was worse than what Skynet created in Terminator. It happened because Evil Maya fed her younger self information after Louis died around 2020, allowing her to own the time-tech they worked on and create this future where she was a sadistic overlord. Adam’s wife, Laura, also found out about this and jumped back to 2050 first to figure the truth out.
However, nothing else is really detailed about this timeline, which creates a blank canvas that could produce quite the spectacle. There are time-jets, weapons like explosive lightsabers, temporal soldiers who use hoverboards, high-tech drones, bombs and guns in this broken future, and a prequel can show Adam and Laura in training as Maya built her project and empowered her army. It would also be intriguing to see her memories reconciling after tampering with 2018, watching her evolve from Louis’ altruistic business partner to a dictator. Not to mention, it would explain her feud with the government and why she needed corporate backing to save her legacy.
An Adam Project prequel could be a nice remix of Looper as well, watching Maya and her team navigating the time-stream to kill enemies and revealing how people like Christos got caught up in the temporal terrorism and why others like Adam and Laura remained freedom-fighters. They could not have been the only ones who caught on to Maya’s scheme, and introducing new allies would be an avenue to bring even more notable actors to the franchise.
Finally, Laura would get more screen time, showing how she uncovered secrets on the time log and defragmented to think for herself. That would give fans a better understanding of Laura and Adam’s work/home dynamic, how Maya manipulated Adam like a mom, the emotions upon the couple discovering they fought for a lie and why Laura couldn’t leave a message before trying to expose the conspiracy about 2018.
To see how a prequel is essential, check out The Adam Project, now streaming on Netflix.
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