Richard Linklater thinks ‘Everybody Wants Some!!’ is the "spiritual sequel" to ‘Dazed and Confused’.
The 55-year-old filmmaker knows he couldn’t make an actual follow-up to the iconic 1993 movie because the original teenage cast would be too old now, but his latest film explores the themes that he would have done had he made a second film in that series.
He said: "You know, I think I have to say that this is my ‘spiritual’ sequel to ‘Dazed and Confused’ because I don’t think you can technically have a sequel without having the same actors and characters.
"If you imagine the young guys in ‘Dazed and Confused’, like Mitch [Wiley Wiggins], four years later going off to college, it’s 1980, he’s once again a freshman.
"In ‘Dazed’, he’s a freshman at high school. Now he’s a freshman going to college. Imagine that. You leave all your old friends and town and family behind and you’re confronted with all the freedoms.
"’Dazed’ was my high school party, this is my college party."
The film – which stars Blake Jenner in the lead role – is set in 1980 and the director has chosen a "very personal" soundtrack to accompany the scenes.
He told Total Film magazine: "Every song in the movie I have a very personal relationship to. I can tell you where we played that album.
"I remember it all very well. I remember, you’d go from music blaring in your house to music blaring in your car to music blaring at a party. It was the soundtrack of your life.
"But whereas ‘Dazed’ was pretty much rock and roll at that time, this movie has early hip hop, punk and new wave. It has country."
Richard Linklater’s spiritual sequel
