Julie Taymor Is Down for an Across the Universe Sequel and SAME. GIVE IT TO ME.
Across the Universe is truly the only attempt at making a musical using the songs of the Beatles that has worked. From the Broadway show Rain (where they pretended to be the Beatles in concert) to a Cirque du Soleil show titled The Beatles LOVE and even the movie Yesterday, they’ve all attempted to display the power and beauty that the songs of the Beatles have, but the only one that has succeeded has been Julie Taymor’s 2007 film starring Jim Sturgess, Evan Rachel Wood, T.V. Caprio, Dana Fuchs, and more.
And now, Julie Taymor told ReelBlend Podcast that she has ideas for a followup set in the ’70s and that Sturgess and Wood are already down! (And that she could probably get the rest of the cast on board, as well.)
“That’s so great to hear because I’m trying to convince people to make –I don’t want to call it Across The Universe 2 – but the next one. I just got off the phone about that actually. My God, there were 200 Beatles songs. So I only used 33. Plus I’d love to take, Jim Sturgess called me up and he wants to do it and Evan [Rachel Wood]’s game. I’m sure I can get the other people…I’d like to push it into the ‘70s. Really edgy, weird times in the ‘70s that are going to be very similar to what’s going to be happening in our country now, right? I dunno, you gotta find me some very daring people that are ready to do a new musical. That are very, you know, next generation… Everyone I talk to loves Across the Universe. We gotta do the next one.”
And I want to focus specifically on the last bit, where Taymor says that everyone she talks to loves Across the Universe, because YES. AS THEY SHOULD. It’s such a beautiful way of looking at these songs and applying them to the time period in which they were being released and the anger and pain that existed during the ’60s.
But Taymor is right: There are 200 Beatles songs, and only 33 of them were used in the film, so there is a world of music that could be incorporated into a sequel, especially one that focuses on the ’70s. I trust Taymor to master the art of the pain that existed then and connecting it to the civil unrest currently taking place in the United States, because Across the Universe touched on that balance and brought us beautiful, poignant scenes that still hit when rewatching the movie.
There’s a reason that we still love and listen to songs from the Beatles. Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison bottled magic in a way that still has fans discovering their music every single day. So I’d take however many movies that Julie Taymor is willing to give us.
(image: Sony Pictures)
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