When, just last month, I talked to Richard Linklater about this prolific moment in his career, I had zero notion he’d been well into preparing a new-new film––following Hit Man, Hometown Prison, and the yet-to-premiere Nouvelle Vague, which says nothing of a Merrily We Roll Along movie coming in 15-17 years. Per Deadline, cameras roll this summer on Blue Moon, a feature scripted by Me and Orson Welles author Robert Kaplow that’ll reunite him with Ethan Hawke and Bobby Cannavale, while Margaret Qualley and Andrew Scott co-star.
Linklater’s next follows Lorenz Hart, a longterm collaborator of Richard Rodgers, and is “set primarily in Sardi’s Restaurant on March 31, 1943, the opening night of Oklahoma!, which marked Rodgers’s first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II as Hart’s replacement.” Hardly a move to capitalize on the commercial hit of his latest: Linklater says he, Hawke, and Kaplow “have been developing this story for over a decade.” From Before Sunset to Tape––with SubUrbia arguably in the same wheelhouse––Linklater’s long thrived telling stories in compressed timeframes and environments, or (as in Orson Welles) concerning the creative life. It’s an ideal development, and with Sony Pictures Classics supporting the project one can even hope for a 2024 release.