While Yellowstone star Josh Lucas continues publicly campaigning for Reese Witherspoon to finally craft a sequel for Sweet Home Alabama, Witherspoon finally addressed the idea. During an appearance on the Today Show in October 2022, Witherspoon told Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hagera sequel would be “fun.” Sweet Home Alabama, which also starred Patrick Dempsey, celebrated its 20th-anniversary last year.
When asked about a “reboot” of Sweet Home Alabama, Witherspoon said she does so. “I think that would be a great idea,” she said. Hager asked Witherspoon if she would be in it, and she simply shrugged and said she did not know. “That sounds fun. Do you guys want me to do it?” Witherspoon asked the Today anchors. After she got an immediate affirmative, Witherspoon said she would “make some calls.”
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Sweet Home Alabama opened in 2002 and grossed over $180 million, back when romantic comedies would still regularly make that kind of money. Witherspoon played Melanie Carmichael, a New York fashion designer who goes back to Alabama after she got engaged to Andrew Hennings (Dempsey). She soon realizes she still loves her childhood crush, Jake Perry (Lucas). Andy Tennant directed the movie from a story by Douglas J. Eboch and a script by C. Jay Cox.
Lucas has told anyone who will listen that he wants to make a sequel. In a 2019 stop on Good Morning America, he said he “extensively” talked about a Sweet Home Alabama 2 with Tennant, and they even had a full plot sketched out. “The proposal – that the director had which was quite interesting, is that my character [Jake] is back in Alabama and Reese’s character [Melanie] is back in New York with our kids and we’re divorced, so their whole life is super complicated,” Lucas said at the time. “And Patrick Dempsey’s character is still in the picture… But that’s just a proposal.”
In July 2021, Lucas told Pop Culture Spotlight with Jessica Shaw that Witherspoon’s jam-packed schedule was to blame. “The issue is Reese’s got a book club. And I’m saying that like laughingly, but Reese is, you know, I’ve heard like, ‘Oh, you can talk to her about stuff five years from now.’ You know, she’s a mogul,” he said.
In December 2022, Lucas told Entertainment Tonight he has personally campaigned for Witherspoon to make it. “I would love to. I’ve campaigned her. I’m not gonna say that she’s the problem, but I think part of it is that Reese is so busy,” he said. “I really believe that — I’m assuming, I hope — she wants to be part of it. Carving out that piece of her life isn’t so easy for her. I don’t have the same responsibilities or time constraints, so I hope that she could find a time to do it. I’ll be there tomorrow.”
Although Witherspoon probably isn’t quite as excited about making a sequel as Lucas is, she still holds the movie in high regard. When promoting Amazon Prime Video’s Something From Tiffany’s, she fondly looked back at Sweet Home Alabama‘s own “magical” Tiffay’s moment. “I hear about it all the time, people say, that moment from Sweet Home Alabama, just really stays with people,” Witherspoon told Entertainment Tonight. “I always love collaborating with the brand, ’cause it’s just this timeless, classic, beautiful brand, and doesn’t everybody love something in a little blue box?”
If a Sweet Home Alabama sequel is ever made, it would be the first live-action sequel of Witherpoon’s career since Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde was made in 2003! Witherspoon’s next movie, the Netflix romantic comedy Your Place or Mine with Ashton Kutcher, will be released on Feb. 10.
