Why Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore want a sequel to ‘The Big Lebowski’
Watching the lonely tumbleweed roll over the hinterland and on through the city of angels, with ‘Tumbling Tumbleweeds’ echoing in the background, as the husky-voiced narrator introduces the protagonist, there is no film opening as compelling as that of the Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski. Added to this, when audiences first watched the movie upon release in 1998, no one could comprehend just how culturally important it was to be.
Delivering many notable characters, quotable lines and even spawning a religion, there’s no wonder that the flick is hailed as the Coens’ masterpiece. Telling the story of the hapless hero The Dude, a man symbolic of his time, after the exposition, we find him stoned in the supermarket looking for food, an everyday occurrence. When he returns home, the equilibrium is disrupted, and the wheels are set in motion for one of the best romps ever to have graced the silver screen.
Blending the brothers’ unmistakably surreal style with the intrigue of a Raymond Chandler work and the twisting absurdity of Thomas Pynchon, this was the mystery re-written for the modern era via the lens of post-modern comedy. Starring Jeff Bridges is his defining role as ‘The Dude’, with him supported by John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid and more, the movie has boundless freshness, meaning that 24 years since its release, it is still as relevant.
Although fans had the chance to return to the world of ‘The Dude’ in John Turturro’s 2020 spin-off The Jesus Rolls, the film was ultimately a bomb, and the absence of The Dude only strengthened the calls for a Big Lebowski sequel.
Supplementing the demand for the Coens to return to The Dude is that Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore would also like to reprise their roles one day. Per MTV, when discussing the 2014 witch-hunting film Seventh Son – which they both starred in – the pair showered praise on the Coens and explained why they want to return to The Big Lebowski. Moore said that this is because their storytelling is second to none.
“No, we want the Brothers to really do ‘Big Lebowski,'” Bridges said in response to a joke that Seventh Son was a follow-up to the 1998 film, a strange supposition when there is no similarity stylistically. Regardless, Bridges rolled with it: “That would be cool. This is like a prequel. A ‘Lebowski’ prequel.”
“I certainly pay attention when the Brothers come calling, man,” he continued, referencing his other work with them, the 2010 remake of True Grit, which also ranks among Bridges’ finest performances.
“Their language is so incredible,” Moore concluded. “The clarity with which they tell stories, I’m always amazed by their work.”