Is a Master And Commander Sequel in the Works?

One of my favorite Anglophile movies in the last few years is the wonderful sea-faring movie, Master and Commander. It’s just one of those perfect movies and I’d probably love it even if I wasn’t an Anglophile.

The movie wasn’t exactly a huge box office smash, but it met with some box office and critical success. Sequels were planned, but it just wasn’t a big enough hit to justify the cost of making more. Well, it seems that it’s success on DVD is encouraging whispers at the possibility of a sequel.

Recently Slashfilm reported on some simmering rumors that star Russell Crowe is looking to make another Patrick O’Brien based movie and that a script has actually been written.

From the site:

An AP story that I caught via USAToday says that Russell Crowe is looking to reprise his role from Master & Commander. He says a script has been completed based on The Reverse of the Medal, which is novel number eleven in the twenty-volume series by Patrick O’Brian. Speculation has long run rampant (well, perhaps not ‘rampant’, but the subject still comes up) that Crowe was interested in another film, but this is the first real confirmation we’ve had. The report doesn’t name the screenwriter.

Given that the film has been a favorite among Crowe fans and that another seventeen novels remain unadapted (the first film drew from three books), sequel talk has cropped up occasionally in the years since Peter Wier’s film appeared in 2003. But in 2005 Weir said he didn’t think it was likely, which isn’t a huge surprise. Making a big nautical adventure is expensive, and Master & Commander isn’t the sort of film that sets the box office on fire. Doing another $150m adult adventure picture at sea seems like a risky move. It’s not the sort of movie Fox makes now. Crowe isn’t even signed for another film, though Paul Bettany and other cast members were signed to multiple pictures at one time. That was six, seven years ago, however, and probably doesn’t mean anything now.

Read the rest of the report here. You can also check out the original AP article here that has a little more info.

Here’s hoping things move forward and they can make a sequel to Master and Commander. I’ll certainly be there on opening day!