After a nothing less than extraordinary few decades, it’s looking increasingly likely that 2018’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs will be the last Ethan and Joel Coen collaboration for some time. Following up the latter’s solo directorial effort, The Tragedy of Macbeth, the former is now getting behind the camera by himself for his next feature.
THR reports that Ethan Coen is teaming with Focus Features and Working Title for a currently untitled project that will shoot this summer. Co-written by Coen with his wife Tricia Cooke, the Russ Meyer-inspired story will reportedly center around a lesbian road trip and was initially developed back in the mid-2000s between The Ladykillers and No Country for Old Men era.
Originally set up with director Allison Anders, the action sex comedy follows “a party girl who takes a trip from Philadelphia to Miami with her buttoned-down friend. Cruising bars ensues as does the potpourri of a severed head in a hatbox, a bitter ex-girlfriend, a mystery briefcase, and an evil senator.” While Selma Blair, Holly Hunter, Christina Applegate, and Chloe Sevigny were all attached at one point in this original iteration, no casting has been confirmed yet.
Last year, Carter Burwell hinted that Ethan Coen may not want to make films at all anymore, so even if the duo aren’t getting back together, we’re at least happy he’s wrong on one front. After seeing Joel’s sensibilities, it will be interesting to see what Ethan brings to the table here, for a project he said back in 2007 has a “sensibility that is “exploitive but innocent.” At the very least, it’s becoming more clear who the funny sibling is.
Update: Ethan Coen has also recently completed work on a new documentary titled Trouble in Mind, capturing the career of American musician Jerry Lee Lewis of “Great Balls of Fire” fame, A&E Networks revealed (via Denis Abuti).