Fletch may have once lived but he is indeed now dead — or, the future of his movies are, at least. Greg Mottola, who resurrected the snarky private investigator (and Los Angeles Lakers’ #99) in 2022, has confirmed that the future of the character is as dead as a doornail, with no sequel planned for Confess, Fletch.
Posting to social media this week, Greg Mottola confirmed that the Fletch series will once again lay dormant, with the director having brought back the character — via Jon Hamm — more than 30 years after Fletch Lives. “Alas, the new head of Miramax, who controls the rights to all the books, shot down my sequel project. The Fletch curse got me.” Mottola is here referring to the numerous attempts to get the character back on the big screen, with various iterations involving Kevin Smith (easily the most vocal supporters of another Fletch), Bill Lawrence and more seeing differing levels of hope.
As for why we won’t see another Fletch movie, Mottola also wrote, “I was told “the first one lost money” — as if there had been any attempt to make money. Jon [Hamm] was very into the new script. I’ve been rather depressed about it, but hard to expect a good break in the feature world these days.” With this, he noted, “Well, feature comedy is having a rough time. I was okay with the idea of it probably being a streaming movie, but I was only going to do it my way.”
No investigation is needed to know that Mottola’s Confess, Fletch — based on the 1978 book of the same name — had a lot working against it. For one, Irwin Maurice Fletcher is hardly a household name; and for another — one likely more important to the studio — the movie went over schedule to the point where Jon Hamm and Greg Mottola both forfeited part of their salary to ensure the movie got done. Reviews ended up being quite strong but Confess, Fletch didn’t get much of a theatrical release, with it going more or less straight to VOD during the pandemic.
Would you like to see a sequel to Confess, Fletch? Why do you think the movie and character didn’t resonate with audiences?