Caffeinated Clint
Cameron Crowe changes his mind about as often as I change my boxers – Okay, slightly more.
The director of such Turtleneck and Pacific Northwest classics as “Singles”, “Jerry Maguire” and “Almost Famous” has long tinkered with the idea of revisiting Lloyd Dobler from “Say Anything…” but just as soon as the interest peaks, it wanes.
In 2015, the filmmaker said he really enjoys writing for John Cusack, who starred in the cult classic, and had an idea where a potential “Say Anything…” sequel would go.
Crowe wanted “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.”
He did add though that it mightn’t necessarily be a “straight sequel” and might instead just be a reunion with Cusack, in which he plays a Lloyd-like character.
Shit, doesn’t matter- it never happened : A Cusack reunion or an “Anything…” sequel.
A few years back, Fox tried to get a small-screen ‘sequel’ to the 1989 classic – – pumping from the boom-box, but Crowe and Cusack squished the project… and not because they had plans of their own for the characters of Dobler and Diane Court (Ione Skye in the film) but because he simply hated the idea of a TV series follow-up.
For Crowe, revisiting these two cherished characters is now more of a ‘would’ve, could’ve’ than a possibility but nevertheless he is keen to know what the Seattle-based sweehearts are up to these days.
“’Say Anything is the power of first love that never leaves you, it’s always just close to the surface,” he says in a new interview.
Speaking to USA Today, the former journo turned filmmaker said he wished he’d actually down numerous sequels to the original – feeling that Lloyd Dobler, played by John Cusack in the film, is a character audiences could age with.
“In a way, I wish we made two or three more movies with Lloyd, or Lloyd and Diane. To me, (Lloyd) was a character who I could write many stages of life with,” Crowe says. “I have a tiny little regret that we haven’t we haven’t continued that story.”
Crowe suggests he could’ve taken a page out of “Before Sunrise” director Richard Linklater’s book and filmed a new sequel every decade or so.
“I love the way Linklater continued that story. When I talk about ‘Say Anything’ continuing, it’s been like name-checking Linklater as he did that, or thought it through,” Crowe says.
At the end of the first film, Lloyd and Diane fly off to England. Did they make it? Who the heck knows – well, maybe Crowe does!
“But I’ll never say. That kind of love is hard to give up. I’ll leave it at that,” he says. “And it is the first time that each of them have really fallen in love. That’s a seismic thing. Their English odyssey is an extension of how do you handle your first great love. Maybe your only great love.”
