The movie Julia Roberts refused to make: “She thought that was a very poor idea”
Julia Roberts has an incredible knack for picking projects. The actor rarely lends her million dollar smile to anything other than hits and has amassed a very impressive filmography across her career. Erin Brockovich, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Eat Pray Love, Pretty Woman, they just don’t stop, and she’s showing no signs of slowing down.
One thing Roberts seems to be adverse to is starring in sequels. With the notable exception of Ocean’s Twelve, she very rarely returns to a character after playing them once. Perhaps she’s always too busy with new things? Or does she feel strongly about not tarnishing her previous work? Whatever the reason, once you’ve worked with Julia, that’s your lot. Even if you’re Richard Curtis.
The British writer and director penned the screenplay for Roger Michell’s Notting Hill, which starred Hugh Grant as a nobody London bookseller and Roberts as the glamorous American movie star he falls in love with. It’s still held up as a perfect example of a romantic comedy and remains a comfort watch for many, even if they weren’t alive when the movie was first released. It would be a real shame if someone were to come along and mess with it, but that’s precisely what Curtis tried to do.
In conversation with IndieWire, the About Time wordsmith revealed that he had planned to revisit the characters of William Thacker (Grant) and Anna Scott (Roberts) in a segment for the BBC’s annual Red Nose Day telethon. “I actually did four Red Nose Days and Comic Relief,” he said, referring the ‘sequel’ to Four Weddings and a Funeral that aired in 2019. He did something similar for Love, Actually in 2017. “I tried doing one with Notting Hill where they were going to get divorced,” he revealed. “Julia thought that was a very poor idea.”
The original movie ends with Will and Anna getting married. It is revealed in the very final scene that they are expecting their first child together, as a clearly pregnant Roberts sits on a bench next to Grant. This is the very definition of a happy ending; the boy tries to get the girl, and they go through a rough patch but find each other in the end. Cue the confetti. Revealing that it didn’t work out decades after the fact would have been tantamount to a crime against culture. Curtis would have been dragged through the streets by angry romcom fans. Roberts did him a solid.
Curtis isn’t the only one who apparently wants to make millions of people cry. At a panel in 2020, Grant expressed his own desires to revisit the film. “I would like to do a sequel to one of my own romantic comedies that shows what happened after those films ended,” he said (via Huffington Post). “I’d like to do me and Julia and the hideous divorce that’s ensued with really expensive lawyers, children involved in [a] tug of love, floods of tears. Psychologically scarred forever. I’d love to do that film.” It turns out both Hugh Grant and Richard Curtis both hate happiness. Save us, Julia!
Roberts, who has spoken about feeling ‘uncomfortable’ on the set of Notting Hill, seems to be the only one who truly understands the film’s legacy. Fingers crossed neither Curtis’ nor Grant’s ideas ever come to pass – it won’t be pretty if they do.
