When Book Club came out in 2018, it was the hilarious premise and an all-star cast that drew many people in. In the movie four lifelong friends, played by Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen, get together for book club, and they decide to read 50 Shades of Grey. What follows is a funny and heartfelt adventure of these women going on their own journeys to find love, and at the core of it is them reading the bestselling, and provocative, bestselling novel by E.L. James. When Erin Simms and Bill Holderman decided to write a sequel to Book Club, they immediately knew it would be challenging to write a follow-up and pick a book that lived up to 50 Shades, and Simms explained how they worked to create a sequel that differentiated itself from its predecessor while also having a sincere message.
In Book Club: The Next Chapter, the ladies decide to read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho -- talk about a tonal shift. The book is all about working to improve oneself and the importance of focusing on what really matters, in the movie’s case that’s love. Erin Simms told CinemaBlend that to make a worthy sequel, she figured they needed to go in a completely new direction because they wouldn’t be able to top 50 Shades. She explained:
At the very beginning, we were like, well, we're not gonna be able to find something that's like so inherently funny, like 50 Shades of Grey, so let's not even try. That was a miracle how that all happened and it was incredible. So let's not try to recreate that.
That’s when they decided to choose The Alchemist for the next movie's focus. It’s hard to compare the two novels, because they are totally opposite in every respect, and that's part of the reason why they liked the idea. Simms continued to talk about why they decided to go with the Coelho book as the focus of the movie, saying:
We didn't want to make another we didn't want to make a sequel that was just a watered-down version of the first one. We didn't want to make a sequel that people would be disappointed in. Really what drives us is the message and the theme. And I know it's a comedy; I know it's entertaining, but we actually are trying to say something and that's really important to us. So the alchemist was something that we read. We love that message, the quote that is at the beginning of the movie. We've seen a lot of people in our lives that are stopping themselves from doing things that they want to do and so it actually felt urgent. It felt like this is something that people need to hear and they need to see that there are these incredible women out there the real women Diane Jane, Mary, Candice who live life, sort of like pedal to the metal as they say. You've got lots of opportunities if you want to take them.
Following in the footsteps of the fairly well-reviewed Book Club, the sequel on the 2023 movie schedule does take a tonal pivot by putting The Alchemist at the center of the story, and I can see why Simms felt the need to do that. By doing this the sequel succeed in diversifying itself from the first movie, but as CinemaBlend’s review of Book Club 2 explains, the philosophical book also made the movie a little tonally confusing. However, overall, they were able to successfully convey their message of taking opportunities as they come, and living life to the fullest.
To see how Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen react to 50 Shades of Grey, you can stream Book Club with a Paramount+ subscription, and to see the ladies read The Alchemist and go on an Italian adventure you can see Book Club: The Next Chapter in theaters now.
