Caffeinated Clint
Brian Flanagan might get to do the hippie hippie shake while throwing a Mojito together again.
The writer of Tom Cruise’s poorly-received but still fiscally fruitful ‘80s guilty pleasure “Cocktail” is working on a sequel.
“I have a long treatment,” Heywood Gould, who also wrote the 1984 book on which the film was based on, tells Esquire. “We’ll see what happens.”
The sequel, according to Gould, takes place 15 to 20 years after the events of the Roger Donaldson-directed original.
Flanagan is a “star in the big club world,” Gould said. But he’s divorced and estranged from his twin daughters. “Now that he’s older, he’s trying to reform himself, rehabilitate his marriage and relationship with his daughters.”
Assumingly, Flanagan married Jordan – played by Elisabeth Shue in the original. Would be nice – if, she’s in the sequel script – to see the Oscar nominee back.
Considering he gunned for a “Top Gun” sequel after all these years, there’s a fair chance Tom Cruise might actually be keen to see what Gould has come up with – but at this stage, nobody that has the power to make the movie, including Cruise, have been in contact.
Personally, I love “Cocktail” – and I’m not quite sure why. It could be that it encompassed the vibrant magnet that seethed into so many Touchstone Pictures’ releases at the time… the hot soundtrack, the popping production design, the slick cinematography, the over-dramatic but fun yarn. It might also be that it was one of the few times I remember going to see a movie with my father. That didn’t happen much – in fact, I remember only going to see three or four movies with him (“In the Line of Fire” was one, we also saw “My Fellow Americans” years later together) – which is surprising considering what big film and music fans, in general, we were but it also makes it somewhat more special that it was something that only occasionally happened.
I remember walking out of “Cocktail” and having a conversation with my father about it all-the-way home – he was raving about Bryan Brown’s performance, suggesting he should’ve gotten billed on the same level as Cruise, while I was still reeling over the cool tunes I heard in the film (the opening track, Wild Again, by Starship, is etched in my mind to this day) – which included, of course, the smash-hit by The Beach Boys, ‘Kokomo’.
Gould’s original book, which I read years later, was a very different kettle of fish to the film. In fact, so was the original screenplay – or so Bryan Brown told me years later.
“You see, the film is based on this book, which was all about the dirty underbelly of celebrity and so on, but once Tom [Cruise] came onboard everything changed”, Brown explained to Moviehole “In the scene where my character kills himself, there was supposed to a bit where I beat the shit out of Tom – like really bash him up – but the studio didn’t allow it. They cut it out. Nobody beats up Tom.”
Hopefully the sequel script is a little grittier than the original’s template – not that Brown will be around to complain about it if he does; Doug Coughlin, rest in peace.
First stop Gould should make is by Roger Donaldson’s office. The born-filmmaker has expressed interest in doing a sequel to his 1988 film in the past.
“You know, there never has been talk of a sequel, not that I’m aware of, but I do agree. It’s a great idea and would make a great movie.
“I’m not dying to do sequels, but it was very successful and people loved the movie. I’m sure everyone would love to know what happened to those characters.”
We sure would – especially that wild ‘Coral’.
