After 20 years, development has kinda/sorta begun on a Bull Durham sequel. Despite the fact that Tim Robins has insisted (as recently as last month) that he “doesn’t like sequels” and “doesn’t want to do sequels”, Robins was actually the one who came up with the idea. Writer/director Ron Shelton explained at the 20th anniversary commemoration at the Baseball Hall of Fame that they “used to say ‘You can’t do a sequel 20 years later.’” but “the fact that it’s 20 years later started to intrigue” him. The movie would open at one of those autograph/trade shows. Shelton explains:

“You pan from Pete Rose and all these guys getting $350 and $500 an autograph, and there’s Nuke [Laloosh] and he’s getting 15 bucks. And he’s really steamed about it because (he was supposed) to get 25.” … “My view of his major-league career is he went up there and in his second year in the majors he was 18-4. In his third year he was 4-18,” Shelton said. “It was a sort of an unrealized career in which we saw glimpses of his greatness.”

Crash Davis is now a AAA manager and Annie is now the Faulkner Chair in Oxford, Miss.

“”Crash and Annie find him in the middle of a drunken stupor in the middle of his hotel room or something,” Robbins said, “and bring him back to the majors by teaching him how to throw a knuckleball”

Sounds very Rocky Balboa-ish, or maybe even a Baseball version of The Wrestler. But do we really need to tell this story with the existing characters that we all know and love? I mean, worst case scenerio, you tarnish the first film by making a sub par sequel. Maybe we just don’t need to see the down and out future of Nuke, orCrash managing a Triple-A team. Either way, I wouldn’t get too worried about the whole idea. Kevin Costner, who played Crash in the original film, promised Robert Ebert in July that he’ll “never make a sequel.”

source: timesunion