“That’s the Worst Idea I’ve Ever Heard.” Robert De Niro Had an Idea for a Sequel to His Acclaimed Movie, Which Was Momentarily Rejected
Robert De Niro wanted to make a sequel to the film with his participation, however, the idea was rejected outright. There was no chance that the cherished film would live to see a sequel.
Robert De Niro has starred in many great films, but there is one in particular that he himself still wanted to return to, making a sequel. We are talking about the highly regarded Taxi Driver, which is still one of the frequently recommended movies today. However, as we know, no sequel to the 1976 production was made, Martin Scorsese stopped at one part. Why did this happen?
Although De Niro was interested in returning to the role of Travis Bickle, the opportunity never came. The reason why the Taxi Driver sequel was not made was revealed during an interview with IndieWire by Paul Schrader, the screenwriter of Scorsese's movie. He explained that he considered De Niro's idea “the worst he had ever heard” and suggested that it would have been a cash grab, which is why he and Scorsese rejected it.
Robert is the one who wanted to do that. He asked Marty and I. Now, I don’t want to slag De Niro, but a lot of his decisions sometimes have financial motivations. I’m sure someone had said to him, “You know, if you do Taxi Driver 2, they can pay.” So he pressed Marty on it and Marty asked me and I said, “Marty, that’s the worst f***ing idea I’ve ever heard.” He said, “Yeah, but you tell him. Let’s have dinner.”
So we had dinner at Bob’s restaurant and Bob was talking about it. I said, “Wow, that’s the worst f***ing idea I’ve ever heard. That character dies at the end of that movie or dies shortly thereafter. He’s gone. Oh, but maybe there is a version of him that I could do. Maybe he became Ted Kaczynski and maybe he’s in a cabin somewhere and just sitting there, making letter bombs. Now, that would be cool. That would be a nice Travis. He doesn’t have a cab anymore. He just sits there [laughs] making letter bombs.” But Bob didn’t cotton to that idea, either.
So the idea of creating Taxi Driver 2 was momentarily killed by the screenwriter of the first installment, who could not imagine that the story could somehow be continued – at least not in a way that would satisfy anyone. As a result, he considered the creation of a sequel “the worst idea he had ever heard.”
Certain movies don't need sequels, it's far better to leave them as stand-alone works, which work best in that form. Yielding to financial temptation or fan persuasion rarely ends well, so it's possible that turning down De Niro's request was the right thing to do here. Especially since they didn't have any good idea to continue Travis Bickle's story.
