Gaynor Flynn
It was announced in 2007 that Samuel L.Jackson was developing, with the original film’s director, Renny Harlin, a sequel to his 1996 hit “The Long Kiss Goodnight”. Jackson’s character, Mitch Henessey, would take center stage in the sequel. Geena Davis’s character from the first, that of assassin-cum-mom-cum-assassin Samantha Caine , wouldn’t be back.
There hasn’t been so much as a peep out of the production since though. Has it been scrapped? Put on the back-burner? Demoted to a comic-book?
Moviehole caught up with Renny Harlin, out spruiking his new film “12 Rounds”, to get the low-down.
”You know I would love to [make the sequel] and I’ve talked about it but it’s definitely a rumour. Right now there’s nothing really cooking on it”, says the Finnish filmmaker. ”But I do have a story line for it, that I worked out and I know exactly what would happen and I think it would be fantastic and I can reveal as much as saying it would be Sam Jackson to his misfortune crossing paths with Geena Davis’s daughter from the first movie who in the first movie was about six years old and who would now be about 19 or 20. And poor Sam Jackson getting involved with something he completely doesn’t want to get involved in.”
Of all the films he’s made, Harlin says “Long Kiss Goodnight” is his favourite.
”It is definitely. For me it’s just very simple. It’s a movie that had a really good screenplay which meant that I was able to get really good actors and it’s always challenging to make a movie but it sure makes it easier when you have a good screenplay like in that one. When you have characters that are complex and you have good drama, and have some humour, and some good action, you kind of have all the ingredients. When you have that you don’t even need some crazy special effects you just need to let the characters do their thing. It was a great experience.”
