Writer-directors Joel and Ethan Coen are not in the business of making sequels, as much as their fans (and Tara Reid) would love to see the continuing adventures of the Dude in a Big Lebowski follow-up. Their films are so immensely colorful when it comes to their typically large ensembles that it's impossible not to want to see more from any one character.
For instance, in their latest, Hail, Caesar!, you could spin off an entire movie about Tilda Swinton's twin gossip columnists or Scarlett Johansson's deviously seductive starlet. Sure, you can do this, but what's always great about a Coen-brothers movie is that they give you just enough of a character to make them memorable and leave you satisfied with the time you've spent with them. The Coen boys are brilliant in that way.
BUT -- and there's always a but -- that doesn't necessarily mean we won't ever see them make a sequel to one of their films. In a new interview with Variety, they reject any continuation of The Big Lebowski ("Tara Reid likes to announce that just like Clooney likes to announce 'Hail, Caesar!' In this case, I don’t think we’ll oblige"), but they do tease what may be the only sequel they ever make (if and when they get around to it). The movie? Barton Fink.
"We’re going to do a Barton Fink sequel at some point," Ethan tells Variety, with Joel adding, "That’s the one movie that we thought deserved a sequel, called Old Fink. But we don’t want to do it until Turturro is quite old. He’s getting there."
In the 1991 film Barton Fink, John Turturro stars a playwright who's wood to Hollywood to write scripts. There's shades of Fink in Hail, Caesar! (including the fact that they share the same Hollywood studio, Capitol Pictures), and knowing the Coen brothers want to return to Fink's story means they're not done exploring tales set in Hollywood. Perhaps we'll eventually wind up with a trilogy of Capitol Pictures movies...
Of course, they could also be joking.
"There’s a huge groundswell of demand for it," Ethan says, as Joel follows up with this amusing anecdote: "This reminds me of an event some years ago; Ann Richards, the governor of Texas, was there. And we were showing some movie in Austin, and she asked me what we were doing next. I said, “Well, we’re making a movie about a barber who wants to be a dry cleaner.” There was a long pause, and she looked at me and said, “I’m trying real hard to get excited about that.”
The fun thing about the Coen brothers is they could announce a story about paint drying, and we'd be excited about it. So regardless of whether Old Fink ever happens or not, we're in for whatever comes next.
Right now that's Hail, Caesar!, which hits theaters this weekend.
