The Big Lebowski spin-off first look: John Turturro returns

It’s the second coming of Jesus. Jesus Quintana, that is. John Turturro returns as the bowler from The Big Lebowski in the first look at Going Places.

Turturro directed, wrote, and stars in the film, which is inspired by the French novel Les Valseuses and marks a secret spin-off of the Coen brothers’ classic. He and his crew quietly began principal photography in August in New York City with a cast that includes Bobby Cannavale, Audrey Tautou, Susan Sarandon, and Sonia Braga.

According to the official plot synopsis, Going Places revolves around “a trio of misfits whose irreverent, sexually charged dynamic evolves into a surprising love story as their spontaneous and flippant attitude towards the past or future backfires time and again, even as they inadvertently perform good deeds. When they make enemies with a gun-toting hairdresser, their journey becomes one of constant escape from the law, from society and from the hairdresser, all while the bonds of their outsider family strengthen.”

The new image sees Jesus back in his natural environment — the bowling alley — while Sarandon previously posted a black-and-white image of Turturro on the set.

Turturro had been talking up the prospect of a spin-off film in various interviews, but cited “a very complicated legal situation” for why he couldn’t move ahead on Going Places sooner. “That character was actually based on a play I had done many years before that, a Spanish play I did at the public theater. It’s a character I invented,” he had said. “If you ever tell anything to Joel or Ethan, they basically steal it from you!”