Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce were set to reprise their roles in an aborted sequel to L A Confidential, alongside Chadwick Boseman.
Well, when you chat with other film buffs about movies that were never made, there’s another conversation piece to be added to the list. In this case, a conversation between The Ringer and filmmaker Brian Helgeland.
it’s been revealed that Warner Bros passed on the opportunity to make an LA Confidential sequel. Helgeland, the first film’s screenwriter, was set to return to helm the sequel, with Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe set to reprise their roles as cops Ed Exley and Bud White. Also adding to the huge potential of this project was the fact that the late, great Chadwick Boseman was in line to star in the film too.
With a sequel already existing in literary form – thanks to the novelist of the original story, James Ellroy – the film would have seen the story picked up in the 1970s in LA. With the first film being both a commercial and critical success (including seven Oscar nominations and two wins), it’s difficult to see just why Warner Bros wasn’t interested in giving the greenlight to a sequel. It certainly feels like it could be added to the list of those great missed opportunities in cinema history, especially since Boseman’s searing final performance in Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom was among the best of his career and showcased what he could do in a period drama.
Nonetheless, this one’s a film that we’ll never get to see now, at least in that incarnation, due to Boseman’s tragic and untimely death at just 42. We also lost the director of the original film, Curtis Hanson, a few years back. Both leave behind a great body of work that, despite being embellished by an LA Confidential sequel, certainly doesn’t need it.
The Ringer
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