Writer/director Cameron Crowe was on fire early on in his career, dishing out coming-of-age tales SAY ANYTHING and SINGLES right out the gate. He then dived into major critical success with JERRY MAGUIRE before delivering the fan-favorite ALMOST FAMOUS, thus cementing himself in the minds of cinephiles everywhere. Many years later came Elizabethtown, then WE BOUGHT A ZOO and now we have ALOHA. As you can see, he's started an unfortunate trend of movies that have really missed the mark (you can check out our review of ALOHA here). Perhaps it's because of this that a sequel to SAY ANYTHING could become a very real possibility.
There have been rumblings in the past about a possible sequel TV show (that thankfully died) and even from Crowe and SAY ANYTHING star John Cusack about returning to the character of Lloyd Dobler in a feature-film, but Crowe recently spoke out about the sequel once again and it seems the man has more than a few ideas that he'd like to put on paper.
Cameron Crowe on the possibility of a SAY ANYTHING 2:
I’ve even thought about revisiting Lloyd Dobler, to write about a stage in life where you’re looking at parenthood, wondering about your choices, and reconsidering some of the choices you made in past relationships. I don’t know if it would be a straight sequel. I just have ideas. It comes down to a few basic things.
I really, really love writing for John Cusack. We have similarities as guys that really benefits him being a mouthpiece for stuff we both want to say. I haven’t quite figured it out. I only mentioned it to him once. In the spirit of the Truffaut movies, where Antoine Doinel would comeback and be in a different context, I really did think that Lloyd could be worth revisiting in maybe a completely different context. So, I don’t know. I guess it would be a spiritual followup. I don’t know how strict of a sequel it would be. I don’t know which characters would appear or reappear. It just feels like a character I could still write for.
SAY ANYTHING, while charming, isn't my favorite Crowe film (that goes to VANILLA SKY) so I'm a little indifferent about the idea of a sequel. To be honest, I don't see why Crowe couldn't just write a new project for Cusack about a man dealing with some of the issues mentioned above. When you make a sequel, people expect callbacks and will draw inevitable comparisons. Keep it separate, call it a "spiritual sequel" if you like, and that goes down smoother. Crowe doesn't strike me as a guy who would get pressured by the studio to do anything like this (given his recent busts) so I certainly hope that isn't the case.
Cameron Crowe's latest feature, ALOHA, is now in theaters if you dare…