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It's the first official day of summer, and therefore the longest day of the year, and a withering 95 degrees outside my window. (But it ain't the heat; it's the humidity.) So what better time to talk about one of the best summer comedies? David Wain's Wet Hot American Summer was made on a relatively small budget and greeted by a seemingly disinterested audience in 2001. But the film has found an enthusiastic cult audience, and one of the tenets of cult movie enthusiasm is holding out hope for a sequel, no matter how unlikely.
In this case, blame the film itself for some of the sequel dreams -- it actively advances the idea of a sequel by having the characters end the movie joking about organizing a ten-year reunion. And so, almost every time David Wain gives an interview the question comes up: where's the sequel? But the movie didn't do well ten years ago and Universal doesn't seem to think it will do well now. (Don't expect a feature-laden anniversary DVD release.)
That doesn't mean the idea of another movie with the characters (played by Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black, Zak Orth, A.D. Miles, Paul Rudd, Christopher Meloni, Molly Shannon, Ken Marino, Joe Lo Truglio, Amy Poehler, and Bradley Cooper) is 100% out of the realm of possibility, however. It's probably only about 98% impossible.
Still, with a 2% chance to live, the dream isn't dead, and in an interview with Jeff Goldsmith [1], the director said,
Yes, we have been talking about a sequel, prequel, something or other... The prequel would be the same summer so they would be 20 years old for the part yeah, but not younger. So it would be 40 year olds playing 16 year olds. And yeah, we’re in the early stages of thinking about that.
A fun idea, sure. But again, Universal isn't interested in doing special features for a DVD (the offer of making a prequel teaser was dangled in front of the studio, which sniffed and turned away) so the actual chance of this happening is pretty slim. Put it this way: you'll definitely see the Arrested Development movie before the Wet Hot prequel. In the meantime, there's always Wanderlust, the new David Wain comedy that wrapped shooting in Atlanta a while ago, and for which I'd really like to see a trailer. [via The Playlist [2]]
[1] http://www.theqandapodcast.com/2011/06/david-wain-wet-hot-american-summer.html
[2] http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/wet_hot_american_summer_director_david_wain_says_hes_thinking_about_a_seque/
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