Lacey Bridges
Kevin Costner wants to do sequels to his earlier films, studios just aren’t as interested in him doing them.
Funny how things can change so much in 30 years.
Despite how handsome he still is (at 61, he’s still got that earnest sex appeal), and regardless of how many movies he helped soar to the top of the box office in [well, before my time], Costner just isn’t the secret weapon of the movie studios like he once was.
You only have to scroll through the news archives of Moviehole to see that Costner’s been quite receptive, at times, to doing sequels to quite a few of his films – in particular “The Bodyguard”, a follow-up of which he seems to flirt with every decade or so, and “Robin Hood : Prince of Thieves” (wouldn’t be the same without Alan Rickman though, would it?). Neither have come to fruition – but not because of Costner’s indifference. He wants in.
And now he’s expressed interest in a sequel to his ‘80s classic “Bull Durham”. In the film, released in 1988, Costner played up-and-coming baseball star Crash Davis. Susan Sarandon played his love interest, and Tim Robbins a fellow player. I’m ashamed to say I’ve not seen it- It looks like a damn sexy – and funny – movie, so I’m thinking it deserves my time. The film is a favourite of critics – which is why the subject of a sequel seems to keep coming up.
Costner was on The Dan Patrick Show when he was asked whether or not he’d be keen to return to the character of Davis. The silver fox says he’d do it, if original director Ron Shelton could come up with a decent storyline for one.
One thing Costner says there is brilliant. And it’s a big part of his appeal – that intelligence and honest charm, I think.
“You see these sequels or the sequel comes out after a movie you maybe like, it’s not very good. Then they go ‘We apologize for that second one, we’re going to make a third one.’ And you just realize that they are just backing that truck in and seeing how big of a shovel they can get and throwing the money at it. Think about how many times you hear ‘I apologize for that second one.’ It’s like really? It’s a pretty good business, the apology business.”
But I digress… The problem with a “Bull Durham” sequel doesn’t just lie with it’s stars age (let’s be honest, 40 year-old Costner could open a movie, but at 61, it’s a bigger risk), but in the fact that these baseball flicks just don’t do so well. If there’s a reason Costner’s early ones did OK business – particular “Field of Dreams” and “Bull Durham” – it’s because, at the time, Costner was rapidly one of his way to becoming one of the biggest movie stars in the world. He did another baseball film quite a few years later, once his star had fallen, and “For the Love of the Game” barely opened. In the late ‘80s, audiences were interested not so much in seeing a baseball movie but in seeing a Kevin Costner movie – that just happened to have baseball in it.
These days Costner is a quality ‘supporting’ actor- featuring in the likes of “Man of Steel”, “The Upside of Anger” and “The Company Man” – with the few films he’s been the lead in not striking much of a match. So if Hollywood isn’t game to greenlight a sequel to [‘80s baseball comedy] “Major League”, which Charlie Sheen has expressed interest in, what’s to say they’d want to do “Bull Durham 2”? The only way it might work is if the filmmakers took a page out of the “Blade Runner 2” playbook and had Costner play support to a new, younger lead – someone bankable like Ryan Gosling or James Franco. Then, audiences might see it.
What do you think? Would you think there’d be any reason to go back to the well on this one?
