When Cameron Crowe casually let slip at the start of this monththat he’d had thoughts about a sequel to his 1989 rom-com classic Say Anything… it naturally set off a firestorm of speculation online. While we reported on Crowe’s comments, we were sceptical that the news was anything but the writer/director simply riffing on the idea and now he tells IFC that that’s exactly what it was.
"I was very surprised that got picked up and repeated so many times," he says, stating for the record that any idea of a sequel to the John Cusack/Ione Skye-starring movie is "definitely a pipe dream."
"It's a personal thing for me, that movie," Crowe explains. "It's probably my favourite thing I've ever done. And the last thing I would ever dream of doing is touching something that I feel so proud about in any way. I just love the characters and I was sort of musing out loud with this really cool person that had asked the question."
But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t thought about ideas on a casual basis. "I do from time to time, just talking with friends," Crowe admits. “But there's no script, nobody's out there trying to pitch a Say Anything... sequel." Still, could we expect something else, such as a spin-off? "If anything, it would be a side character or some story where there was some kind of linkage. I love Mike Cameron (Jason Gould), I love the poor drunk that they drive home on the night of the grad party. As a writer, there's just more there that I always thought, 'Well someday.' Maybe it's just a short story. Maybe it's a miniature kind of thing that I write some day." So there you have it – no one should be holding any kind of breath.
But if you are craving more Anything, you'll be happy to hear that Crowe himself has been posting deleted script fragmentson his site...