Alex Winter Reveals If He Wants to Direct Long-Awaited Lost Boys Sequel
Just before audiences got to know him as Bill S. Preston, Esq. in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, actor and filmmaker Alex Winter spent some time with acclaimed director Joel Schumacher on The Lost Boys. The role was Winter's first taste of commercial success, and it's something that fans still approach him about 35 years later. Still, even after becoming a pretty accomplished director in his own right, Winter doesn't think he would be interested in pursuing a Lost Boys remake or sequel if the opportunity crossed his path.
Saying that he didn't think the same way Schumacher did, and that he didn't have the "specific" vision that the Lost Boys director had, Winter suggested that he would rather see somebody else take on the gig than come in and feel like his version was less than perfect.
"I don't know if I would [direct it]," Winter told ComicBook.com's Chris Killian. "It's like stepping into hallowed ground for me, just in terms of how great a job Joel did, and how specific his vision was. My brain doesn't work like Joel's, so I don't know if I could do it justice. I think you want to find someone who thinks that way. I didn't want to direct Bill & Ted 3. I didn't want to come in and screw it up. We were so lucky we got Dean Parisot. I didn't want to come in and screw this thing up, but I'm really proud of that movie, and I'm really grateful that I got to be in it. Miraculously, after all these years, people still love that film, which is crazy."
In 2020, The CW optioned The Lost Boys for TV, with an eye toward creating a series would have been that the first live-action follow-up to The Lost Boys in about a decade. The project died when Nexstar took over the network and started slashing original scripted programming. There were previously two direct-to-video sequels -- Lost Boys: The Tribe and Lost Boys: The Thirst, which were explicitly set in the same timeline as the original movie, rather than being reboots. There have also been two comic book miniseries from DC: Lost Boys: Reign of Frogs, a prequel to The Tribe, and Lost Boys, a 2016 miniseries that also featured the Frog Brothers, characters from the original film.
Franchise star Corey Feldman has often expressed an interest in doing a "proper" sequel to the movie -- one that would carry a theatrical budget and production value.
"I mean, we've done Lost Boys. We've done a couple sequels. I'd still like to do a final one that's done the right way, with a big budget and all the cast," Feldman said last year, adding that "We're very grateful that people still love the movie, that people still remember the movie, and now it's getting this re-release so it's kind of fresh and fun all over again."
Winter's The YouTube Effect, a documentary film about the impact that YouTube has had on the way people consume media, starts its theatrical run on Friday through the Alamo Drafthouse chain.