Before The Sunrises and After It Sets: Part 3

I had a chance to chat with Ethan Hawke this morning - grab a broom, I just dropped a name - about his new flick Daybreakers and I couldn't let the opportunity to ask him about a third Before Sunrise flick pass.

For the uninitiated, Before Sunrise was a little flick from director Richard Linklater (who I will be a fan of eternally thanks to his brilliant Dazed and Confused) that told the story of a young American, played by Ethan Hawke, who befriends a beautiful French girl (played by Julie Delpy) on a train and ends up spending the night wandering around Vienna with her. Nearly ten years after this tiny, perfect movie, Hawke, Delpy and Linklater reunited for the sequel, Before Sunset; and against all odds, they recaptured the magic and made another fantastic little romantic flick.

The films were never big box office draws. The original, made for $2.5 million, grossed $22 million while the 2004 sequel didn't even earn back its modest $10 million production budget. However, the audience that did find these flicks absolutely adored them. (Both movies garnered an 8 out of 10's from the imdb.com viewer rating system.) I asked Hawke if he would be intrigued by a third chapter and I was surprised by his enthusiasm for the idea. "I would love to do it, in fact, I would be so bold as to say I would be surprised if we didn't. That said, I have no idea if it would be in two years or in twenty five years. There's no plans to do it; Richard Linklater and Julie Delpy are two of my closest friends in the world. Those movies are really... You know, to say they're dear to me, makes it... less than what it is. They're a part of me. I love those movies." Linklater himself has recently been quoted talking about how he and Delpy have tossed a few ideas around for a third installment, so it seems it's more a matter of when it will happen. Hawke closed by saying "I would love to make another one, I think we're just kind of waiting to have something to say."