It's rare for two films as perfectly pitched and utterly delightful as "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset" to come along, but can Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and Richard Linklater three-peat? That's going to be the big question as news of the proposed followup has once again reared its head, and should it actually turn out to be fact, we could be seeing it very soon.
But first to recap: last fall, Hawke teased that he was re-teaming with Delpy and Linklater to write and make the film. "All of three of us have been having similar feelings that we're ready to revisit those characters. There's nine years between the first two movies and, if we made the film next summer, it would be nine years again so we're really started thinking that would be a good thing to do. We're going to try write it this year," Hawke said. However, Delpy poured cold water on that notion back in January saying, "We're thinking about it, but it's not official." But perhaps now things are moving along?
Chatting with Indiewire recently, Hawke seemed pretty confident the movie was going to get made, and even teased a little bit of what it might entail: "We’re also doing a follow-up to 'Before Sunrise' and 'Before Sunset,' so that will be fun. We’re going to shoot that this summer," he said. "I’ve gotten into trouble, so I’m sworn to secrecy. The biggest change between this one and the last one is the internet."
Hmm… Will Jesse and Celine continue their relationship on Skype? Maybe find each other all over again on Match.com? Get swindled by a Nigerian Prince scam? All we know is the magic of the previous films lied in the simple interactions between Hawke and Delpy, and we hope this doesn't fall too far down the technological rabbit hole. But will anything beat the closing shot of "Before Sunset"?
We'll see if this comes to fruition though. When we spoke to Linklater in April, he was pretty cagey about what he was up to next, though he might've been trying to keep this under wraps. And if anything, the "Before Sunrise"/"Before Sunset" films are the kind of low-key productions that could be made on the fly and under the radar. But expectations will be very high, so let's hope that if they do it, they do it right.