Richard Curtis Claims Julia Roberts Turned Down This 'Very Poor Idea' For A Notting Hill Sequel

Notting Hill writer Richard Curtis has revealed he once came up with the idea for a sequel to the hit rom-com, though Julia Roberts was less than impressed with it.

As well as his hugely successful screenwriting career, Richard is also the co-founder of the charity Comic Relief, and has previously included revivals of Love Actually and Four Weddings And A Funeral as part of the Red Nose Day telethon.

Speaking to IndieWire, the Bafta winner revealed that he’d planned to do the same with a “mini sequel” to Notting Hill.

“I tried doing one with Notting Hill where they were going to get divorced,” he explained.

The question is, how come this never made it to screen? Well, apparently Julia Roberts “thought that was a very poor idea”, which rather threw the brakes on the proceedings.

Richard never mentioned what Julia’s co-star Hugh Grant made of his proposed Notting Hill follow-up, but the Heretic star actually pitched a similar idea back in 2020.

“I would like to do a sequel to one of my own romantic comedies that shows what happened after those films ended,” he said. “Really, to prove the terrible lie that they all were, that it was a happy ending.”

Hugh added: “I’d like to do me and Julia and the hideous divorce that’s ensued with really expensive lawyers, children involved in [a] tug of love, floods of tears. Psychologically scarred forever. I’d love to do that film.”

Notting Hill is available to stream now on Netflix.