Producers of New Line Cinema's recent Jim Carrey thriller about a bewitching number have announced plans for a sequel despite their first outing's disappointing box office, saying they have the right formula right this time.

Director Joel Schumacher confirmed he'll be back to take another — and supposedly "corrected" — stab at the genre in "The Number 23 II: The Number 47," already set for a 2008 release on April 7 and a delayed July 4 premiere in the UK.

"Basically, it was a matter of right concept, wrong number," Schumacher said at a press conference to announce the picture. "Everyone in the mathematical world knows that '47' is a much better, more bizarre and enchanting prime number. I don't know what we were thinking with the number 23!" he said about the first movie's rather awkward and random integer.

It is unknown if Carrey or Virginia Madsen will be reprising their roles, but Schumacher says screenwriter Fernley Phillips will be joined on the project by scribe Joe Menosky, a longtime former Star Trek veteran.

"We've already had our battles over the sequel title, but the Motion Picture Marketing and Title Management division insists we keep the franchise in the title, and thus the Roman numeral," Schumacher added. "Otherwise, I'd just go with the '47' and trust the world to get it. It's the atomic number of silver, for God's sake!" Matrix producer Joel Silver was unavailable for comment.

Shooting locations have already been selected in New Mexico and at California's Pomona College.

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