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Steel yourself, cinephiles: A sequel to the 1942 classic Casablanca, one of the greatest films of all time, could happen in the near future. But while practically 99 percent of all Hollywood sequels and spin-offs seem like cash-grabs that have no good reason for existing, is there a case to be made for revisiting the saga of star-crossed lovers Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca 2?

Consider the source of said would-be sequel, per the New York Post: Original Casablanca screenwriter Howard Koch, who shared the Oscar for Best Writing with fellow scribes Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein. Blacklisted a few years after Casablanca became a hit, Koch penned a sequel in 1980 revolving around the grown son of Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) and Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), who goes searching for his father in the Middle East.

Unearthed by The Post’s Lou Lumenick, Koch’s 1960s-set Return to Casablanca synopsis goes a little something like this:

“[Laszlo and Ilsa] attempt to locate Rick after he and Renault left to join the Free French forces opposing Rommel in North Africa. They have had no success.

After leaving Casablanca for America, Ilsa learned she was pregnant. She gave birth to a boy who grew up in America. The real father of the boy, it turns out, was not Laszlo but Rick.

He was conceived the night Ilsa came to Rick’s place to plead for the Letters of Transit . . . The secret was not kept from Laszlo, but being the kind of man he was and owing so much to Rick, he adopted the child and treated him as his own son.

The boy was named Richard, and he grew up to be a handsome, tough-tender young man reminiscent of

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