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First Kidulthood, then Adulthood, and now Brotherhood is coming. After years of speculation and rumour, Noel Clarke has dropped a teaser for a third 'hood' movie scheduled to hit screens next year. Kidulthood was a gamechanger for British hood movies when it came out in 2006, spawning a whole genre of UK-based urban flicks and defining a generation. The sequel Adulthood followed two years later, but writer-director-star Clarke has been occupied by other projects—including appearing in Star Trek—since then.
It’s been almost a decade since the first film, and a lot has changed. British hood movies have almost entered self-parody by now. Is the series still relevant? Here are five things we’d like to see from Brotherhood for it to truly make an impact in 2016.
Introduce a whole new generation of British stars.
Kidulthood and Adulthood helped the launch the careers of not just Noel Clarke, but also the likes of Adam Deacon, Jamie Winstone, Femi Oyeniran, Rafe Spall, Nicholas Hoult and Ben Drew. Yet a lot of those names are already in their thirties, and Clarke himself turns 40 this year. Where is the new generation going to come from? In recent years, most of the big British actors to break through have been posh kids, like Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston and Eddie Redmayne—let’s see this as an opportunity to give a new wave of working class kids their big break on screen.
…And have that new generation reflected on the soundtrack.
The soundtrack to Kidulthood is a great mid-00s time capsule, with tracks from Dizzee Rascal, Shystie, Estelle, The Streets and Lethal Bizzle. Let’s see the 2015 equivalent of that. Get some bangers from Stormzy, from Novelist, Faze Miyake, Little Simz, and some modern-day Skepta and JME on there, and make it the defining soundtrack of the 2010s.
Reflect everything that’s happened to London since 2006.
Kidulthood is one of the most defining London movies of all time. But a lot has happened to the city since it first came out. Probably the first thing to come to mind is the death of Mark Duggan and the London riots, but we've also seen gentrification, the housing crisis, Boris Johnson, the fucking Cereal Café... Let’s not just make the film that’s an easy nostalgia trip, and instead make something as vital as the original was.
A Noel Clarke—Adam Deacon reunion.
Adam Deacon grasped the opportunity Kidulthood gave him with both hands, picking up the 2012 BAFTA Rising Star award and having insane box office success with Anuvahood. But he’s had a difficult time recently—a rift between him and Noel Clarke ending with him being found guilty of sending Clarke violent treats on social media, while he’s also suffering from mental health issues and was even detained under the mental health act. But now, hopefully, Deacon seems to be getting better (and we wish him all the best), and it would be a genuinely heartwarming end to the story if they could resolve the differences to appear on-screen together again. It’s a difficult situation, we know, and it probably won’t happen, but we’d love to have a real-life positive ending.
Something that’s more than just a hood movie.
A movie like Brotherhood doesn’t need validation from broadsheet critics to be an artistic or creative success, but it would be fantastic to see it break out of the increasingly small British hoodie movie bubble. It could give a voice to a generation that’s not listened to by politicians or the mainstream press. There are a lot of issues facing kids from less well-off backgrounds today, and Brotherhood being a big, mainstream hit could really get them being talked about in the national consciousness.
