Earlier this week, Decider Austin posted an interview with Repo Man's Alex Cox where the director discussed some of his screenplays that were never made. Among them: a sequel to the 1984 cult hit Repo Man. In the piece, Cox describes what happened:
Michael Nesmith and the producers of Repo Man proposed this sequel to Repo Man to Universal about 12 or 13 years ago. The weirdest thing is Universal never got back to us, so we raised the money independently. It was kind of hard to raise money for a film with Emilio Estevez, because his career as an actor hadn’t been very illustrious. Peter McCarthy, one of the producers of Repo Man, worked and worked and was finally able to put together a deal. Then, suddenly, Emilio Estevez just dropped out, and from then all the energy just fell out of it.
It wasn't long before Emilio Estevez himself got in touch with Decider to politely offer his side of the story in what will surely be this year's most civilized, respectful Internet beef.
Obviously Mr. Cox is feeling snubbed by me, as I have passed on participating not only in his Repo Man sequel, but on most other events related to the film as well, be they film fest retrospectives, re-release of the DVD with actor's commentary, and many other gatherings to celebrate the film. I remain proud of Repo Man, but my focus is on what's ahead of me, not what's in my rearview mirror.
You can read the interview here and Estevez's response here.