When it came to this weekend’s "Hail, Caesar!," it was a project that was mentioned on and off for years, and then, was finally made. Could the same happen for "Old Fink"? To bring you to speed, it’s the proposed sequel to "Barton Fink" that the Coens have been tossing around forever, calling it perhaps at their most optimistic, “more a thought experiment than a movie.” However, it’s a thought they can’t shake.
"We’re going to do a ‘Barton Fink’ sequel at some point," Ethan Coen told Variety, with his brother Joel Coen adding: "That’s the one movie that we thought deserved a sequel, called ‘Old Fink.’ But we don’t want to do it until Turturro is quite old. He’s getting there."
Asked if they had actually written anything yet, Ethan dryly quipped: "No, but there’s a huge groundswell of demand for it." So yeah, maybe don’t hold your breath for it.
He’s certainly not incorrect that most audiences probably couldn’t care one way or another for another "Barton Fink" movie, however, there’s been a lot of excitement about John Turturro‘s proposed "Big Lebowski" spinoff centering on Jesus Quintana, at one time working with a proposed title of "100 Minutes Of Jesus." And back in 2014, the actor was quite gung ho saying, "If I can get the permission I need, I’d like to return to that role," and wanted to direct the movie himself in 2015. That didn’t happen. And when asked by the trade about the possibility of that movie ever getting made Ethan was quite clear: "No."
And Joel added that there won’t be any followups to "The Big Lebowski" either. "Tara Reid likes to announce that just like Clooney likes to announce ‘Hail, Caesar!’ In this case, I don’t think we’ll oblige," he quipped, referring to the actress’ announcement of the sequel in 2011.
Meanwhile, the directors have waded into the waters of #OscarsSoWhite in an interview with The Daily Beast, and they try to separate the issue from the actual show. "[That’s] assigning way too much importance to the awards,” Joel said of the controversy. “By making such a big deal, you’re assuming that these things really matter. I don’t think they even matter much from an economic point of view. So yes, it’s true — and it’s also true that it’s escalating the whole subject to a level it doesn’t actually deserve.”
"Diversity’s important. The Oscars are not that important," he added.
And the pair said that diversity doesn’t just mean shoehorning various ethnicities into a script. "It’s important to tell the story you’re telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity — or it might not," Ethan said.
"It’s an absolute, absurd misunderstanding of how things get made to single out any particular story and say, ‘Why aren’t there this, that, or the other thing?’” Joel added. “It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how stories are written."
Their comments will certainly spark some reaction, so let us know what you think in the comments section below. "Hail, Caesar!" opens on Friday.