Netflix's orc cop thriller sequel 'Bright 2' lines up a director

The sequel to 2017 orc-cop buddy movie Bright, starring Will Smith, has lined up a director.

According to Deadline, Louis Letterier is in negotiations to take on the follow-up, picking up the mantle from Suicide Squad's David Ayer.

Ayer was originally in line to make the sequel himself, after it was given the green light soon after the first movie debuted on Netflix.

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But Ayer has been working instead on the Dirty Dozen remake for Warner Bros, as well as other Netflix projects, now handing it off to another helmsman.

Letterier, meanwhile, is the director of movies like 2008's The Incredible Hulk with Ed Norton, the Clash of the Titans remake and Now You See Me.

The sequel will reunite Will Smith and the heavily made-up Joel Edgerton as LAPD officers Daryl Ward and Nick Jakoby, the latter being America's first orc cop.

Penned by Max Landis, the movie did exceptional business for Netflix, raking up a reported 60 million views, at the time the biggest numbers for any movie on the platform.

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According to Nielsen, 11 million watched it in its first three days on release.

However, the high-concept project, which combined inner city crime in a world involving orcs, elves and magic, took a pounding at the hands of the critics.

Holding a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of just 28%, while IndieWire, calling it the worst movie of 2017, noted: “There's boring, there's bad, and then there's Bright.”

At the time, Ayer said that he was happy to get 'a strong reaction either way'.