It appears that John Turturro’s long-held wish for a Big Lebowski spinoff has come true. The actor has been talking for years about his desire to see the story of Jesus Quintana continued in some form or another, but the film’s writers/directors, Joel and Ethan Coen, have not been secretive in their disinterest in making such a project. However, after all this time it appears that Turturro may have simply taken things into his own hands, as word comes that he’s actually filming a Big Lebowski spinoff right now.

Turturro is currently in production on Going Places, which is a remake of the 1974 French sex farce Les Valseuses. However, the folks at Birth.Movies.Death have learned that the film is actually a Big Lebowski spinoff centered around Jesus Quintana, with Turturro handling script duties and reprising the role with a cast that also includes Bobby Cannavale, Audrey Tautou, and Susan Sarandon. So, yeah, that’s kind of big news.


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Image via Working Title

The plot of the film, per BMD, is as follows: “Two petty thieves, Turturro’s Jesus and Cannavale’s Petey, compete to give a woman (Tautou) her first orgasm after she’s roped into their hijinks.” Sarandon reportedly plays a criminal just released from a long stint in prison who also ends up as part of this troupe.

The Coen Brothers don’t appear to be creatively involved whatsoever, so it certainly appears that Turturro simply just opted to make this film himself. Whether he got their blessing is unclear, but he’s been close with the brothers for years and they didn’t seem to have a big problem with Fargo being turned into a TV series, so one imagines they’re not exactly bent out of shape by this news.

Going Places currently has no distributor, but once word is out that this is a Big Lebowski movie, interest will no doubt spike. Turturro is currently doing swell work on the HBO limited series The Night Of in a dramatic turn, but he’s been directing features since the early 90s and most recently directed Woody Allen in 2013’s Fading Gigolo, so it’s not as if he’s cutting his teeth on a highly anticipated Lebowski movie.

While the Coen Brothers seem to kind of shrug off The Big Lebowski as a silly comedy, the cult around the film is massive, and The Dude himself Jeff Bridges recently said he’d be down for a proper Lebowski sequel focusing on the Little Lebowski he made with Julianne Moore’s Maude. In the same interview, he voiced his support for the Jesus Lebowski spinoff, so imagine his surprise when he finds out it’s already in the process of being made.

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Image via Working Title