Is A Casablanca Sequel In The Works, Based On An Idea From The Original Screenwriter?

While little is sacred in Hollywood, you’d have thought that one of the few might be Casablanca, but it appears not, as the New York Post reports that Warner Bros. is considering making a sequel to Casablanca, based on a treatment written more than 30 years ago by screenwriter Howard Koch.

One thing that might give us some reason to hope this won’t be a complete travesty is that Howard Koch wrote the screenplay for the original Casablanca, so at least this started from a good source. Now Howard’s son, Peter Koch, has taken up this treatment, which is about the child of Rick and Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), set 20 years after the original film – so I suppose technically this would be a spin-off, which might avert the ire of film purists.

The producer commented, “After leaving Casablanca for America, Ilsa learned she was pregnant. She gave birth to a boy who grew up in America. The real father of the boy, it turns out, was not Laszlo but Rick. He was conceived the night Ilsa came to Rick’s place to plead for the Letters of Transit [so that settles the did they or didn’t they make love ponderings]. The secret was not kept from Laszlo, but being the kind of man he was and owing so much to Rick, he adopted the child and treated him as his own son. The boy was named Richard, and he grew up to be a handsome, tough-tender young man reminiscent of his father. He had been told the truth about his origin and has a deep desire to find his real father, or at least more about him, since Rick’s heroic at actions in Casablanca have become legendary.”

The movie follows Richard’s journey to Casablanca after his mother and Laszlo pass away. Cass Warner, the granddaughter of Warner Bros. founder Jack L. Warner, will produce. She indicated the studio passed on the project a year and a half ago, but they also expressed interest in revisiting it if she could find a filmmaker the studio wants to work with.

Warner Bros. had originally planned to make a sequel entitled Brazzaville shortly after Casablanca’s release, where it was revealed that Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and Captain Renault (Claude Rains) were actually secret Allied agents. The project never moved forward (thankfully).