“Searching” was one of the most successful movies of 2019.

Made for just $880,000, the mystery thriller set entirely on computer screens and smartphones grossed $75.5 million, while also receiving critical acclaim. Unsurprisingly, Sony Pictures wanted a sequel. There was just one problem: “Searching” director and co-writer Aneesh Chaganty had no interest in making one.

“The one thing that I was adamant about was we would never ever make a sequel to ‘Searching,’ ” Chaganty said. “To me, it would have been like be making a sequel to ‘Memento.’ The conceit can only be done well once. How many other ways can you really tell a story like this story?”

After rejecting Sony’s request, Chaganty and his writing partner Sev Ohanian were made aware that if they didn’t make a “Searching” follow-up, then someone else would. That dilemma is what provoked the pair to start thinking of potential new plots and ways to tell the story.

“We thought, ‘What if we switched the protagonist? What if it was a kid looking for a parent?’ That meant it was still about family and it was a similar movie about a parent and a kid’s relationship. But showing the technology in the world today through the eyes of Gen Z made it fresh and gave us a new world to explore.”

The result is “Missing.” The “Searching” sequel revolves around June Allen (Storm Reid), a rebellious teenager who has to use all of the latest technology at her disposal to try and find her mother, Grace (Nia Long), after she doesn’t return home to Los Angeles from a vacation to Colombia with her mysterious new boyfriend, Kevin (Ken Leung).

It makes sense Chaganty was so intent on “Missing’s” computers, apps and phones being as up to date as possible. Born in Redmond, Chaganty moved to San Jose at the age of 1, but spent most of his summers with his family in the Tri-Cities. Before directing “Searching,” Chaganty wrote and directed commercials for Google, and he’s always been fascinated by technology.

“My parents both work at a software company,” Chaganty said. “My dad’s a software engineer. I grew up in Silicon Valley. I worked at Google for two years. Technology has always been an inch away from my fingertips.”

But while Chaganty was increasingly focused on this aspect of “Missing,” he never wavered in his refusal to direct the film.

“’Searching’ was one of the most painstaking processes of making a film. Every single frame requires this massive amount of artistry and creative thought,” said Chaganty, who ultimately has a producer and has a co-story credit on “Missing,” as he has spent the past two and a half years writing his upcoming third film as a director.

“Sometimes you’d see comments on the trailer for ‘Searching’ where people said, ‘They must have shot this over a weekend.’ They had no idea we took three years to make the film and were always in postproduction. When you have the ability to change the background into anything you want, you will find a reason to do it. The possibilities were always endless.”

With “Searching,” Chaganty and Ohanian had been given an opportunity to write and direct, even though they didn’t really have the necessary experience. That’s exactly what they wanted to do with “Missing.” That’s why they asked “Searching’s” editors Nick Johnson and Will Merrick if they wanted to write and direct the film instead. Unsurprisingly, they jumped at the chance to do so.

“They had been part of every single conversation on ‘Searching.’ We’d been classmates at USC. From the moment they came onboard, they knew exactly what they were doing,” Chaganty said. “We had so many creative conversations about aesthetics right off the bat. We knew from the beginning, we needed to inject a whole new style of filmmaking and a new energy and style of visual storytelling to make this film feel worthy and also different than the original. It was so cool to watch them work on this, because it’s such a constraining medium.”

Chaganty believes “Missing” embraces and depicts the use of technology in a way that most other movies avoid: “It’s very fearless about it. It helps to make the film fun and more enjoyable. Because it’s always great when you can make people go, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen something like that.’ ”