There are many great films out there that have been cursed with terrible sequels, ranging from Jaws to Mean Girls. There is truly no film that is immune to getting the sequel treatment, like 2001: A Space Odyssey, which Peter Hymans made an unwelcome follow-up to with 2010: The Year We Make Contact.
Still, we can’t write sequels off entirely, of course, otherwise we wouldn’t have The Godfather Part II or Aliens. Some just aren’t necessary, though, and it can be easy to view them as nothing more than a quick cash grab – which is often exactly what they are. Studios know that people are likely to return to the same cast of characters if they liked the first film enough, so it would be stupid, at least from a financial perspective, not to capitalise on such popularity.
It’s this thinking that keeps the film industry afloat, however depressing it is in terms of artistic output. Making sequels for the sake of it is something that certain stars are wholly against, though, like Julia Roberts. She has turned down the chance to make various sequels to films she has appeared in, with only one movie standing as an exception to her rule.
The best example of Roberts rejecting the chance to appear in a sequel, which probably would’ve earned her a decent cheque, came in the form of a Notting Hill follow-up, which the actor immediately rejected. She knew that it was a disaster waiting to happen because Richard Curtis’ ideas were depressingly miserable.
He had the idea to do a short film follow-up, just as he did for Love Actually, which would show Roberts’ Anna and Hugh Grant’s William experiencing a messy divorce. “I tried doing one with Notting Hill, where they were going to get divorced,” Curtis told The Guardian, but Roberts reportedly “thought that was a very poor idea.” She’s right.
She’s just not interested in doing a sequel that could destroy the magic of the film that came before it, and you can hardly blame her. However, if she had to do a sequel, then there’s one film that she would consider: Pretty Woman.
The movie really put Roberts on the map as a leading star, with the actor playing the escort of a businessman, portrayed by Richard Gere. Their unconventional love story has endeared many over the years, and it remains one of Roberts’ most popular films. Not only did it earn her an Academy Award nomination, but it became the most successful romantic comedy of all time, smashing the box office.
While the movie earned its fair share of criticisms for playing into the ‘hooker with a heart of gold’ trope that has plagued cinema for decades, that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a widely beloved film, and one which Roberts would be open to making a sequel to.
“I’ve learned to never say never. I’m not a sequel kind of girl. But if I ever did make a sequel, it would be to Pretty Woman, and that’s it,” she once told The Oklahoman. It seems unlikely that this would ever materialise, and I can’t help but think that this would probably be for the best.