Josh Lucas reveals he's talked 'extensively' with director about a 'Sweet Home Alabama' sequel
"Praise the Lord, the South has risen again!"
It's been 17 years since Josh Lucas stole our hearts in "Sweet Home Alabama" but the actor just revealed he's spoken with the director "extensively" about a potential sequel and even revealed some potential plot lines.
"I've absolutely said yes," Lucas announced on "Good Morning America" about his chat with the movie's original writer and director Andy Tennant. "He and I discussed it extensively so we're lobbying the world to join us."
Although his leading lady, Reese Witherspoon, has a full plate in real life he had some predictions about what their character's relationship would be like now.
"The proposal -- that the director had which was quite interesting," Lucas said, "is that my character [Jake] is back in Alabama and Reese's character [Melanie] is back in New York with our kids and we're divorced, so their whole life is super complicated."
"And Patrick Dempsey's character is still in the picture," he added laughing. "But that's just a proposal."
Until then, fans of the rom-com who have held on dearly to their teenage crush can see Lucas in his new movie "Breakthrough."
"This is an extraordinary true story that happened a few years back. A 14-year-old boy was playing on the ice and he was underwater for 15 minutes. He was lifeless, no pulse, no nothing for an hour," Lucas explained. "They basically stop resuscitation and they bring the mother into the room to say goodbye -- [she] refuses to believe that he's gone and so she starts praying and speaking to her god and his pulse comes back."
The movie explores what the family goes through after the powerful moment of survival and the doubts that come along with it.
"It's a really remarkable story and a remarkable testament to faith and prayer and it's a fascinating film, to say the least," Lucas said.
The actor also said that while faith based audiences might "happily go see it" they hope to appeal to others with the accuracy with which the story is told.
"It's the people who aren't that we were looking to honor in a way," he said. "This story is accurately told down to the filmmakers, who made sure to say this happened at this exact moment. When people see the movie, they'll see there's a really strict code that we had to extent to tell the story exactly as it happened."
Lucas and his 6-year-old son sat with Joyce Smith, the mother who it happened to in real life, and her son at the premiere and said she would excitedly repeat to the star "this is exactly what happened."
"They kept leaning back throughout the movie -- to the point where I had to be like 'Shhhh'," he said laughing.
"I think part of the responsibility you have when you tell a true story, if the people are still alive and around, is for them to be proud of the movie and they are. They love the movie."
"We had the great Steph Curry as the executive producer of the movie," Lucas said of the Golden State Warriors star.
"It's his first film -- he also was the advisor during the basketball scenes."
Lucas said he was thankful for the entire team who "brought a piece of joyful, hopeful cinema out there, which I think right now a lot of us are searching for."
