Ethan Hawke discutiu isso com Collider :
He also revealed, “We had a version of [Before Sunset] that happened two years later. But once it took us five years and we can’t get the money to make that movie we have to rethink it. So elements or lines from that script stayed. When we first finished Before Sunset there was an idea that we would do. Julie and I wanted to do a short film the next year that we thought would be really fun to do like a five minute short and then put it in the vault so to speak and then fifteen years later make another film.”
O artigo também discutiu o terceiro filme:
If you’re a fan (like me) of these two amazing movies and are hoping they’d do a third film, it sounds like they aren’t against it, but don’t expect to see it anytime soon. That’s because even though people constantly give Hawke ideas for the film, he says, “My thought is we will make one as soon as everybody has forgotten about it.”
Mais tarde, eles esclareceram a razão exata pela qual lançaram o terceiro filme quando o fizeram, em uma entrevista ao site francês Allocine . Citando A reescrita do The Guardian :
Hawke reveals that he, Delpy and Linklater are negotiating a third outing for the transatlantic couple. "All of three of us have been having similar feelings that we're ready to revisit those characters," said Hawke. "There's nine years between the first two movies and, if we made the film next summer, it would be nine years again, so we really started thinking that would be a good thing to do. We're going to try to write it this year."
Então, para resumir, eles queriam lançar Before Sunset antes, mas se esforçaram para obter financiamento e isso atrasou o lançamento. Quando eles finalmente lançaram o filme, nove anos se passaram. Eles não queriam lançar Before Midnight muito cedo, e eventualmente decidiram lançá-lo nove anos após Before Sunset , para ter a mesma consistência de linha do tempo entre os dois primeiros filmes o segundo e terceiro filmes.