A few weeks ago, Mike White announced that he’d just finished penning a sequel to the hit comedy The School of Rock. “I actually just completed a draft of what’s potentially the sequel, and I’m still, like, crying as I’m writing the script,” he said. Well, sniff up those tears, Mr. White. And sniff up some other stuff, because it’s time to celebrate! Variety reports that Paramount Pictures has given the devil sign (in a good way) to the project, and both Jack Black and director Richard Linklater are aboard. Hopefully they’ll manage to squeeze Joan Cusack back in there somewhere. Because, and I don’t say this lightly, Joan Cusack is the bee’s knees.
The flick “picks up with Finn (Black) leading a group of summer school students on a cross-country field trip that delves into the history of rock ‘n’ roll and explores the roots of blues, rap, country and other genres.” That “other genres” endcap gives me hope that funeral doom and pornocore will also be included. Excitable boy Jack Black is going to have to get used to franchises, it seems. His Kung Fu Panda is kicking up mucho coin here and overseas, so a sequel to that is surely in the planning pipes.
Plus, Margot at the Wedding 2 is an inevitability.
Linklater was last in theaters with the great A Scanner Darkly – a movie that really deserves a better, feature-filled DVD than it has. He’s currently finishing up work on Me and Orson Welles, which will be released next year. That movie, which is about a young Welles directing a high school play, stars Ben Chaplin and Zac Efron. Linklater is an amazing cinematic acrobat, but that Chaplin-Efron combo is going to be a tough tightrope to walk. Keep him in your thoughts, please.