Leigh Whannell to Direct 'Upgrade' Sequel Series in the Works at UCP

“Treadstone’s” Tim Walsh will serve as showrunner

Blumhouse Television is developing a TV series follow-up to the 2018 film “Upgrade” with Leigh Whannell on board as co-creator and director.

“Treadstone” and “Chicago P.D.’s” Tim Walsh will serve as co-creator and showrunner on the series, which “picks up a few years after the events of the film and broadens the universe with an evolved version of STEM and a new host — imaging a world in which the government repurposes STEM to help curb criminal activity.”

The series will be co-produced by Blumhouse Television and UCP, which was also behind the series adaptation of “The Purge” at USA. Krystal Ziv Houghton and James Roland, who ran the second season of “The Purge,” have joined the writers room for the new series.

Released in 2018, “Upgrade” was written and directed by Whannell and starred Logan Marshall-Green as Grey Trace, a widower who was left paralyzed in the brutal mugging that killed his wife. He’s approached by a billionaire inventor with an experimental cure in the form of a computer chip implant called STEM, which provides its host with heightened physical abilities, allowing Grey to exact revenge on those responsible for his wife’s death.

Betty Gabriel and Harrison Gilbertson also starred in the original film, which grossed $16 million at the global box office.

Jason Blum and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones from Automatik will executive produce alongside Whannell and Walsh. Whannell, who most recently directed Universal’s “The Invisible Man,” recently signed a first-look film and TV deal with Blumhouse.