With Danny Boyle finally getting round to his Trainspotting sequel, there’s a trend building for directors to revisit the (more advanced) lives of their early characters. Those purveyors of masterful, oddball Americana, the Coens, are promising to do likewise. Before you get your hopes up too much, it’s not that sequel to The Big Lebowski that’s been subject of mumbled rumours for so long but their 1991 Palme d’Or winner.
"People have been asking about a sequel to The Big Lebowski for years, but I don’t think it’s going to happen,” says Joel Coen. “[But] we have talked about doing a sequel to Barton Fink, just really in response to the enormous popular demand for one,” adds brother Ethan, drily, "but it would be old Fink. We don’t want to do it until [John] Turturro is old enough. He’s almost there, he just needs a few more years.”
If there’d be something awesomely Coen-like about making a sequel to their least successful film, Barton Fink, a horror-tinged tale of blocked writers, seedy hotel and murder, does boast the awards kudos, critical affection and coterie of loyal fans to make a Barton Fink 2 a more-than-interest-piquing idea.
So how old would Fink need to be? "He needs to be 60,” says Ethan. Bearing in mind Turturro is 58, things may be close to coming fruition. “It’d be [set during] the Summer of Love in San Francisco [and he’s] teaching at Berkeley or something,” adds Joel. "He’s an old leftie but an ideologue who’s become old and cynical and embittered,” says Ethan.
"Turturro keeps urging us to do a Jesus spinoff,” Ethan Coen tells Empire of another Lebowski-ish notion. That idea, [first mooted by Turturro himself](
http://www.empireonline.com/movies/news/john-turturro-planning-big-lebowski-spin/), looks as likely to come to fruition as the Jesus hairnet is likely to start trending on Milanese catwalks, but there’s something in Barton Fink’s grouchily put-upon screenwriter that’s still tickling the Coens' funny bone.
So why this character from their entire pantheon of weird and wonderful types? “We liked his hair,” says Ethan. “I’m not really that interested in what happens to The Dude or Walter,” adds Joel. "I think they have to stay in their particular moment, but Barton Fink for some reason…”. Ethan finishes his brother's sentence. “We’d already decided that John Goodman comes back as an Obi Wan-like character.” Yes, strike him down and he’ll become more homicidal than you can possibly imagine.
In the meantime, another film to feature the Coens' fictitious Capitol Pictures, Hail, Caesar!, lands in UK cinemas on March 4. Read our verdict here and check out the trailer below.