Richard Linklater’s adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Merrily We Roll Along is not the first time the director has taken on a monumental task of producing a movie over a long period of years. His first effort in this style, Boyhood, was filmed over 12 years. For this latest production, he’s going even longer, as filming is planned to take 20 years, with 15 more years or so to go after production officially began in 2019. Boyhood was a monumental achievement, but I have to wonder if trying it again will work again. There has already been a major issue, which I’ll address.

Two Decades Is A Long Time

I completely appreciate that Linklater pulled this trick off with Boyhood, but there are some differences here. Notably, it’s almost twice as long a shooting schedule. A lot can happen over two decades. Like Boyhood, Merrily We Roll Along has a small cast that includes Paul Mescal, Beanie Feldstein, Ben Platt, Mallory Bechtel, Hannah Cruz and Lin-Manuel Miranda. This works in favor of the director, as there are fewer chances for something to happen to one of the cast members.

However, that very thing has already happened. When filming began in 2019, Blake Jenner, who previously worked with Linklater in Everybody Wants Some!!, was cast to play the lead, Franklin Shepard. After wrapping the initial production, Jenner was accused of domestic abuse by his ex-wife (and Glee co-star) Melissa Benoist. In the fallout from that, Paul Mescal replaced Jenner in the cast, forcing reshoots to happen in 2021. Not to make light of the situation by any means, but it’s a stark example of something happening that is out of Linklater's control.

I don’t expect anything like that to happen again, but that doesn’t mean that something won’t happen to a cast member. People get into disagreements, people’s priorities change, God forbid someone gets sick… There are just so many variables. Think about where you were in 2006 and where you are today. It’s been a long time. This time, it meant reshoots early in the process, so what if something happens at the end of the full production?

If Linklater And Company Pull It Off, It Could Be Epic

If you don’t know the story of Merrily We Roll Along, it’s perfect for this kind of ambitious project. It takes place over 20 years and is presented in reverse chronological order, so presumably, the first part of the production in 2019 and 2021 was covering the end of the movie, when the cast is at their youngest. Shooting it in “real time” is very cool, and it means there won’t be a need for heavy makeup or weird CGI de-aging.

It’s also a well-known property, but it wasn’t an immediate hit. In fact, the original Broadway production, which opened in 1981, flopped almost immediately. It was panned by critics and audiences alike, and though its reputation has been re-examined over the years, it’s still a divisive entry in Sondheim’s canon. The movie, and the production style, could solve the biggest complaint critics have had over the years, that the story is a bit confusing and hard to follow because of the reverse chronology. Having family actors playing the roles across the entire two decades would make it much easier to follow.

I have no idea if Linklater and the cast will pulls this off, but if they do, they will deserve a huge amount of praise for the ambition alone.

The movie industry is changing, and few people know that better than Richard Linklater. The director just released his latest film, Hit Man on Netflix, which quickly found its way to number one on the streamer and has seemingly been an instant crowd pleaser. While fans have loved the fun, quirky, and strangely profound action comedy, many have wondered why the movie went to the streaming platform and only received a limited release in select theaters before its at-home debut. Linklater recently explained why he partnered with the company for his film's distribution, and he didn't mince words. 

It was during an interview with IndieWire that Richard Linklater was asked about Hit Man’s Netflix success. Amid the chat, the auteur also explained why he decided to join forces with a streaming service for his latest film rather than fight for theatrical distribution. The Dazed and Confused filmmaker explained that while he would’ve loved for his latest flick to have been acquired by a major studio and played wide in theaters, the changing movie industry prevented that from being in the cards. Linklater didn’t blame audiences, but rather the studios for not taking chances on adult entertainment at the theaters:

Looking at the movie landscape, it’s hard not to see his perspective. The films that tend to perform well at the box office these days are those that are linked to massive IPs with built in audiences. This year feels like a glowing example of the director's point. Despite the summer movie season being in full swing, Dune: Part Two remains atop the box office for global cumes in 2024. Original projects like The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and The Fall Guy had underwhelming showings, despite featuring major stars at the center and generally appealing to a wide audience. Something like Hit Man, which is explicitly adult, is a major risk for studios and a space that feels dominated by streaming services -- especially when trying to reach the widest audience possible. 

Richard Linklater's action romance flick is indeed achieving success on one of the best streaming services on the market. However, he still feels the disappointment regarding a lack of a proper theatrical release and what it means for original adult movies at the box office. Hit Man had all the tools at its disposal: a big-name director with many successes under his belt, a sexy crowd-pleasing story and script and a budding movie star in Glen Powell, who is coming off box office gems like Anyone But You and Top Gun: Maverick. The film also got wonderful reactions out of Sundance and seemed like a sure-fire success. Even with all of that working in its favor, big studios still weren’t interested in taking on the project. Linklater continued:

There's a chance the Glen Powell-led flick would have broken through had the film played solely in theaters across the globe. Last year, the adult drama Oppenheimer achieved box office success and, this year, Civil War and Challengers this year have made waves in their own way at the theaters. However, the aforementioned Christopher Nolan film also benefited from a major coincidental Internet campaign and is now starting to feel like the exception rather than the rule. But, even if Hit Man achieved Civil War/Challengers numbers, this arguably still doesn’t come close to the number of eyes on the film after a major Netflix release. Of course, that reinforces Richard Linklater’s point about the dominance of streaming in the adult movie space. 

Even though some may be disappointed to not see Hit Man on the big screen, the movie is still a fantastic watch and worth checking out with a Netflix subscription. For more information on movies heading to both theaters and streaming this year, make sure to consult the 2024 movie release schedule. 

It’s Glen Powell summer, and Hit Man has helped prove that point. The Richard Linklater comedy starring the Top Gun: Maverick actor made its streaming debut on the 2024 movie schedule on June 7, and now it’s become one of Netflix’s highest-rated originals on Rotten Tomatoes.

In the weeks leading up to Hit Man’s premiere on Netflix’s release schedule, it had a limited theatrical run (Linklater and Powell’s movie should have been on the big screen longer, in my humble opinion) and it quickly garnered high praise. When it came to Hit Man reviews, critics were on the same page, and that’s shown on Rotten Tomatoes too, as the film has become one of the streamer’s highest-rated originals. For context, as of June 8, 2024, here’s the list of the top ten movies on Netflix according to the Tomatometer:

1. His House – 100%
2. Miss Juneteenth – 99%
3. The Forty-Year-Old Version – 99%
4. Under The Shadow – 99%
5. Godzilla Minus One – 98%
6. Hit Man – 97%
7. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom – 97%
8. Dolemite Is My Name – 97%
9. Hunt for the Wilderpeople – 97%
10. Mudbound – 97%

First of all, the fact that Hit Man is No. 6 right out of the gate, and it’s sitting at 97% on the Tomatometer with nearly 200 reviews is seriously impressive.

It’s also vital to note that not all the movies in this top ten are Netflix Originals. His House and The Forty-Year-Old Version are the only two projects above Hit Man that are from the streamer. So, in a way, you can also consider the Powell-led movie as the third-best Netflix Original on the platform right now.

What makes this even cooler is that the project swiftly became one of Netflix’s best movies. However, that shouldn’t really be surprising considering the hype it had leading up to its release on the streamer.

For those who might not know, Hit Man follows Powell’s Gary as he works as a guy who pretends to be a hitman to catch potential killers. Added to that, and without giving the movie away, Gary finds himself in a romantic relationship that complicates everything. It’s a hilarious concept that shows off its leading man’s acting and comedy chops as he transforms from hitman to hitman, and it’s overall a delightful time.

I saw it in theaters, and it was one of my favorite moviegoing experiences of the year. Now, many are probably having a similar experience as they watch the project from the comfort of their homes.

Overall, this movie marks another milestone on Glen Powell’s rise to movie stardom, and it’s well deserved (as shown by its place on this Rotten Tomatoes list). For years now, he’s been making a name for himself, but over the last year he’s really stepped into the roles of leading men, and people have loved it. Just look at the quiet box office success of Anyone But You, the critical acclaim of Hit Man and the hype around his upcoming movie Twisters, and you’ll start to understand why this year has been so astounding for him.

To see what all the hype is about, you can stream Hit Man right now with a Netflix subscription. Then, make sure you catch Glen Powell in his next big movie when Twisters spins into theaters on July 19.

Richard Linklater’s latest film “Hit Man,” starring Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, is now available to stream on Netflix, and the legendary writer-director sat down with us to discuss the making of his (sort of based on a true story) film, and his career. We dive into his process of working with actors, finding chemistry on screen, the prospects of a “School of Rock” sequel, and an incredible story about Matthew McConaughey’s iconic “Dazed and Confused” line. 

It’s our first full show back from our hiatus, so we also take some time to discuss what we’ve been watching, Disney’s new “Star Wars” series “The Acolyte,” and we celebrate the incredible influence of Scott Wampler following his passing. 

Timestamps (approx. only)

• 00:00:00 - Intro
• 00:07:16 - Richard Linklater Interview - ‘Hit Man’
• 00:38:25 - ‘Hit Man’ Review
• 00:42:41 - This Summer Movie Season Is ‘Just Fine’
• 00:51:31 - New Disney+ ‘Star Wars’ Series ‘The Acolyte’ Reactions
• 00:54:13 - What We’ve Been Watching
• 01:04:14 - Remembering Scott Wampler
• 01:15:44 - Outro

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Glen Powell is proving to be quite the movie star, coming off two years of successful showings in Top Gun: Maverick and Anyone But You. In the upcoming Netflix movie Hit Man, audiences really get to see the actor stretch his wings, as his character Gary Johnson takes on several different personas while working undercover for the New Orleans police. Critics are raving about the movie — and its lead actor — as Hit Man’s Netflix release date approaches.

The movie was released to select theaters in May before it goes to streaming, and CinemaBlend’s Riley Utley cites this dark comedy as proof that Netflix needs to put its movies in theaters longer, since most of us will be robbed of what she found to be one of the best theatrical experiences of the year so far. Despite the size of the screen you see it on, however, Good Morning America’s Peter Travers contends you’ll be seeing one of the best movies of the year. The critic says: 

Siddhant Adlakha of Mashable agrees Hit Man is one of 2024’s most killer comedies, thanks in part to its lead’s “ridiculous” characters, which inevitably have people wondering when Glen Powell is going to host SNL. By the time the credits roll on this one, Adlakha says, you'll wish it was ten times as long. The critic continues: 

David Fear of Rolling Stone says audiences’ suspension of disbelief may be challenged, but their faith in Glen Powell as the real deal can’t be shaken. Fear writes: 

Den of Geek’s David Crow, meanwhile, says Hit Man has found a way to have its pie and eat it too, with its deceptively clever script and the hot-to-the-touch chemistry between Glen Powell and Adria Arjona. According to Crow, this is easily the best film Netflix has secured in possibly over a year. Subscribers owe it to themselves to put their phones down and tune into this one, writing: 

Jane Crowther of GamesRadar calls the movie a “damn good time,” with a screwball tone that harkens back to the late 1990s, especially with its lead couple, who sizzle as they play off of each other like Mr. and Mrs. Smith-era Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Crowther says: 

The critics above clearly think Hit Man is worth checking out, and their opinion is shared by more than just a few others. In fact, the Glen Powell comedy is Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 97% critics’ rating. If you aren’t able to find this in a theater near you, be sure to fire up your Netflix subscription to catch it on streaming starting Friday, June 7. Also be sure to check out our 2024 movie release calendar to see what else is coming soon (including another Powell project). 

When I saw Road House in theaters, I was thinking a lot about why it should have gotten a theatrical run. I had the same thought when I saw The Idea of You on a big screen. However, it was Netflix’s Hit Man that sent me over the edge about this theater vs. streaming predicament, because it’s a true shame that it won’t be in theaters long before going straight to streaming.

So, after witnessing this Glen Powell-led project on the 2024 movie schedule in theaters, I’m asking, begging, pleading, in fact, to Netflix and other streamers to please put their movies in cinemas longer. So many people won’t get to see this magnificent film with an audience and on a massive screen, meaning they won’t get to have one of the most fun movie-going experiences of the year, and that just makes me sad. 

Hit Man Was One Of My Favorite Theatrical Experiences Of The Year

To be blunt, Hit Man is easily one of the best theatrical experiences I’ve had all year. 

It’s up there with Dune: Part Two and The Fall Guy. Honestly, the crowd I was with for this comedy was more reactive than the folks I saw the other two movies with, and it 100% made Hit Man even better. 

Without giving too much away, Richard Linklater’s Hit Man stars Glen Powell as Gary, a guy who is a full-time professor and has a side hustle where he pretends to be a hitman to help the police catch potential murderers. Throughout the film, we see the Top Gun: Maverick actor play multiple characters as Gary takes on different personas to catch potential criminals.

Powell gives an SNL-quality comedic performance, and the audience I saw this movie with couldn’t get enough of it. From his Tiger King-esque character to the ginger British hitman, seeing these wild looks on a big screen was oodles of fun, and then witnessing the actor jump effortlessly from character to character had the majority of us in awe, as proven by the gasps and laughs throughout the movie. 

Then, as the film shifts its focus to Gary and his relationship with Maddy, there's an element of romance, sexiness and intrigue added to the project that’s irresistible. Their unconventional love story had the audience and me on the edge of our seats, and the audible reactions I heard as we saw these two work through the challenges of their relationship were relatable and hilarious. 

All-in-all, everything about Hit Man is fun, and it’s amplified when you are able to see it with a crowd. So, Netflix, I’m asking you again: Please, put your movies in theaters for longer.  

Netflix Should Have Learned A Lesson From Glass Onion

This is the second time in recent memory that Netflix has done a limited release for one of its movies before putting it on streaming. If you remember, the critically acclaimed Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion, was in theaters for one week, and it made $15 million at the box office. Netflix’s head honcho even said they could have made more if Rian Johnson’s whodunnit would have been in theaters longer.

That was an example of a win-win. Audiences got to have a blast figuring out the mystery together while laughing at the antics of Benoit Blanc, while Netflix got some extra cash from the theatrical run.

However, it was only a week, and in the grand scheme of things, more people saw the movie from their couches than a movie theater seat. 

The same will be true for Hit Man. It’s also getting a limited theatrical run, so if you live in a major city you can see it before its premiere on Netflix’s release schedule in June. 

Sadly, Hit Man Had To Face This Release Reality, And That’s Incredibly Disappointing

These limited windows of time and screens make it incredibly difficult for folks to see the movie in theaters, and it’s probable that most don’t even know Hit Man can be seen in a cinema. When Netflix picked up the movie, Richard Linklater knew this would be a reality he’d have to face, as he told Texas Monthly:

It makes me sad that this is a truth Hit Man had to face, and what makes me even sadder is most people won’t even know what they’re missing. 

I had to very actively seek out a screening of this movie, and I had to travel to New York City from New Jersey to watch it. Most of my friends didn’t even know what the film was, despite it getting great reviews and wonderful publicity coming out of its festival run. The fact of the matter is, this under-advertised theatrical run is not that known about and might not do well. 

However, as proven with Glass Onion, some of Netflix’s movies have the power to have a great box office run. Glen Powell is a box office star (just look at the success of Anyone But You and Top Gun: Maverick) and Richard Linklater is a well-known filmmaker, it feels like their comedy has so much potential to draw in an audience. However, it won’t get the chance, because it’ll only be in theaters for a couple of weeks. 

If it had a longer and wider run, it’d make the movie more accessible and it would give people the chance to have one of the best theatrical experiences of the year. Proper advertising and a wide release would help folks fall in love with Hit Man, and they’d fall even harder if they could see it on the big screen with an audience. I know I did.

So, Netflix, if you are reading, please let your movies like Hit Man live in theaters longer, because it’ll give more people the opportunity to see fantastic films like this one in the way they were intended to be seen: on a big screen.

If you aren’t able to see Hit Man in theaters, or you want to re-watch it later, you’ll be able to stream it with a Netflix subscription on June 7.

Glen Powell has been a busy guy the past few years thanks to the industry-saving Top Gun: Maverick, his rom-com Anyone But You racking up more than $100 million at the box office, and those talks of Top Gun 3. But before the in-demand actor straps into a jet again, he’ll take his talents to the streaming world with the upcoming Netflix movie, Hit Man. 

The new action comedy, which will see Powell re-team with Richard Linklater for the third time, will be here before you know it, and we have some details you don’t want to miss. From its release date to its trailer and the unbelievable true story on which it is based, here’s everything we know about Hit Man. 

What Is The Hit Man Release Date?

Anyone with a Netflix subscription can check out Hit Man for themselves when the new Glen Powell movie is released on June 7th, but that isn’t the only way to give the action comedy a spin. According to Vanity Fair, Netflix is also giving the film a brief theatrical release at some point before that. There hasn’t been any word on how long Hit Man will be on the big screen or how many markets will receive it, but expect to hear more in the coming weeks and months.

Glen Powell And Adria Arjona Lead The Hit Man Cast

When Hit Man makes its streaming (and theatrical) debut this summer, it will bring together a talented cast that is anchored by Glen Powell, who will be taking on the role of Gary Johnson, a college professor with a new line of work. According to Netflix Tudum, Powell will be joined at the top of the cast list by Adria Arjona, who will be taking on the role of a woman in crisis named Madison. 

In addition to those two, the movie will also feature performances by The Walking Dead’s Austin Amelio, Parks and Recreation cast member Retta, The Flight Attendant’s Sanjay Rao, Chicago Med star Molly Bernard, and Hidden Figures’ Evan Holtzman, though their characters have not yet been disclosed. 

The Hit Man Teaser Is Full Of Mystery, Intrigue, And Pie

We don’t yet have a full Hit Man trailer going into the finer details of its plot and the character that will be navigating its world, but Netflix has released a quick teaser to get everyone excited in the meantime. In late January 2024, the streaming giant gave everyone a quick look at Richard Linklater’s upcoming movie, and it is full of mystery, intrigue, and pie: 

In addition to seeing Glen Powell sitting at a diner table saying “all pie is good pie” while staring into Adria Arjona’s eyes, the one-minute teaser also features some intriguing snippets of his character firing guns, wearing various costumes, and looking cool as hell in the process. If the rest of the movie is this good, we’re in for a ride. When the full trailer does eventually arrive, we’ll for sure be breaking it down, even if it doesn’t go as hard on the pie.

Hit Man Follows A College Professor Posing As A Contract Killer

Okay, an action movie with a dark sense of humor about a hitman on Netflix sounds a lot like David Fincher’s The Killer, but hear us out, as Linklater’s new movie looks and sounds completely different. Instead of following a contract killer obsessed, like totally obsessed, with The Smiths and positive affirmations, Hit Man follows a college professor who’s only posing as a paid assassin to bring people to justice. 

However, based on what Netflix has said about the movie, there could be some similarities between the two, as the Glen Powell flick will reportedly deal with cause and effect when the “killer” gets in way over his head. This one sounds like it’s going to get out of hand…

Hit Man Is Based On A 2001 Texas Monthly Article Of The Same Name

There are a lot of upcoming book-to-screen adaptations to look forward to in 2024, and Hit Man loosely falls into that category. The upcoming movie is based on Skip Hollandsworth’s 2001 Texas Monthly article of the same name, a lengthy true crime saga about a seemingly normal college professor from Houston, Texas, who worked with police to nab more than 60 people seeking to hire a hitman to take out spouses and bosses. 

When speaking with Deadline ahead of the film’s September 2023 premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Richard Linklater revealed he had known about the article for years but was having trouble adapting it until a conversation with Powell changed everything:

"Loosening up" the adaptation also allowed the Dazed and Confused director, who has a ton of films set in Texas, to have more fun with the story, especially when it comes to the whole “masquerading as a hitman” idea.

Richard Linklater Directed Hit Man And Co-Wrote The Script With Glen Powell

Before making Hit Man, Richard Linklater directed two movies starring Glen Powell – Everybody Wants Some!! and Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood – but unlike that pair of films, his latest feature is also co-written by the Hollywood leading man. In the Deadline interview mentioned above, Linklater revealed that he initially started writing the script on his own, but after talking with Powell several times, he decided to send him to some pages to make changes. The rest is history, and now they share a writing credit for the film.

We can expect to hear more about Hit Man as we get closer to the film’s release later in the 2024 movie schedule. As for Linklater’s long-in-the-works adaptation of Merrily We Go Along, it will be more than a decade before we see that come to fruition.

At some point in the distant future, Richard Linklater will add to his impressive body of work with Merrily We Roll Along, an ambitious project that’ll make Boyhood, his ambitious 2014 Texas-set epic filmed over the course of 12 years, look like a standard production. The decades-spanning adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical of the same name, which will be filmed over two decades, sounds like it could be one of the most unique cinematic experiences in some time, and we all have reason to be excited.

If this is the first you’re hearing about this highly anticipated adaptation, worry not, because we’re about to break down everything we know about the project so far. And while we don’t yet know the Merrily We Roll Along release date or even a window for its debut, we do know who’ll be leading the massive project, what it’s about, and how we may get to see the most recent Broadway revival of the timeless and cherished stage production.

What Is The Merrily We Roll Along Release Date?

Unless someone built a time machine, went far into the future, found a copy of Merrily We Roll Along, and brought it back to right now, there’s no way we’re going to see the upcoming Richard Linklater project on the 2024 movie schedule. As of the time of this writing, no one involved with the ambitious musical has said when it will come out, and there’s a good chance no one knows because it’s going to be in production for at least another decade-and-a-half.

What Is Merrily We Roll Along About?

Back in August 2019, when Merrily We Roll Along was first announced, it was reported by The Hollywood Reporter that Richard Linklater’s movie, when finally released, will tell the story of a successful and talented Broadway composer named Frank who grows tired of the experience and decides to leave everything behind (friends and career included) to start anew as a film producer in Hollywood.

Interestingly enough, instead of starting with Frank’s decision to abandon the Big Apple for the City of Angels, the movie will start there and then work its way back in time, revisiting key moments from his career and other important moments from throughout his life. So just imagine the opposite of Linklater’s Oscar-worthy Boyhood.

The Movie Is Based On The Broadway Musical Of The Same Name

We’ve seen quite a few film adaptations of Broadway musicals over the years, including several based on the work of the late Stephen Sondheim, the beloved composer known for his work with West Side Story and Sweeney Tood who passed away at the age of 91 in November 2021. And you can add Merrily We Roll Along to that list. In August 2019, Variety reported that Linklater’s ambitious project will be based on the 1981 musical of the same name.

The musical, which has seen multiple stage productions around the world over the past 40 years, was based on George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s 1934 Broadway play of the same name, according to Playbill. The show was brought back for a Broadway revival in 2023 and went on to win multiple Tony Awards the following year, including Best Revival of a Musical, Best Actor in a Musical (Jonathan Groff), Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Daniel Radcliffe), and Best Orchestrations.

The Merrily We Roll Along Cast

It is hard to say where their respective careers will be by the time the movie is released, but the Merrily We Roll Along cast is anchored by some incredibly talented and popular young actors, whose stock continues to be on the rise.

Paul Mescal as Franklin Shepard

In January 2023, Variety reported that Paul Mescal would be taking on the lead role of Franklin Shepard after the Aftersun and All of Us Strangers actor replaced Blake Jenner, who was previously cast to play the Broadway composer. Though Merrily We Roll Along is many years away, we’ll soon see Mescal in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II and Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet book adaptation.

Ben Platt as Charley Kringas

According to the same report, Ben Platt will be taking on the role of Charley Kringas, Franklin Shepard’s creative partner and lyricist. Platt, no stranger to Broadway productions and film adaptations of famous plays, has appeared in everything from Dear Evan Hansen (both the stage and film versions), The People We Hate at the Wedding, and Theater Camp to name a few.

Beanie Feldstein as Mary Flynn

Beanie Feldstein, best known for movies like Lady Bird and Booksmart, will be taking on the role of Mary Flynn, Franklin and Charley’s longtime friend and theater critic Feldstein previously worked on Broadway productions like Hello, Dolly! and Funny Girl.

Mallory Bechtel

In February 2024, Deadline reported that Mallory Bechtel had joined the Merrily We Roll Along cast, though her role has not yet been revealed. Bechtel made her Broadway debut in 2018 after landing the role of Zoe Murphy in Dear Evan Hansen. She has since gone on to appear in everything from Hereditary to Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin.

Merrily We Roll Along’s Production Kicked Off In Summer 2019

Though we won’t likely see Merrily We Roll Along in its final form for a couple more decades, parts of the movie have already been filmed. In fact, Deadline reported in August 2019 that principal photography for the first segment of the film had already been completed, but didn’t provide any details about which portion of the movie that included. The movie is being filmed in this unique manner so that the actors can continue to play their characters as they age without the need for prosthetics and other Hollywood tricks.

Like countless other movie and TV projects, Merrily We Roll Along was impacted by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in mid-to-late 2023. Shortly before the strikes ended, Richard Linklater spoke at the Venice Film Festival premiere (via ScreenDaily) of Hit Man where he said he and his team would start up “pretty soon, if we can” after the work stoppage came to an end. However, it’s not known if production resumed by the end of the year.

The Tony Award-Winning Merrily We Roll Along Revival Was Filmed In Summer 2024

Though it’s going to be at least another decade-and-a-half before we get to see Richard Linklater’s film adaptation of Merrily We Roll Along, we may get to see a version of the Broadway musical without having to travel to New York City much, much sooner.

In June 2024, Deadline reported that the Tony Award-Winning Merrily We Roll Along was being filmed by RadicalMedia, the company that produced the Hamilton movie for Disney+ back in 2020. At the time, a production insider told the outlet that the production was being filmed for “posterity,” which is something the source said “doesn’t happen very often.” It’s hard to say if it will be released in theaters or end up on one of the best streaming services, but we should know well before 2039.

Expect to hear more about Merrily We Roll Along in the coming months, years, and decades as we look toward the film’s eventual release. If you’re looking for information on everything coming to the big screen before then, check out our rundown of the biggest upcoming 2025 movies.

Hollywood is loaded with iconic directors who have given audiences some of the best entertainment for decades. For that reason, they're often given more work, which always opens them up to giving audiences more to love... or something they may really, really hate. Most of these icons hit far more often than they miss, though even the greatest have that movie where they struck out.

To be completely upfront, there will be some hot takes on this list. Every item on this list is the lowest-rated movie from the mentioned iconic director on Rotten Tomatoes, so blame the critics of the time, not me. With that out of the way, let's run down the list of terrible movies from iconic directors that may or may not deserve a spotlight.

Guillermo Del Toro - Blade 2

Ironically, what many would consider the best Blade movie is also the worst movie made by Guillermo del Toro. Not that Del Toro is ever really given a ton of blame for that; his job was to direct, and he did his best with the script he was given. Unfortunately, even the most foreboding and dark areas fall flat when the movie uses fight scenes with dialogue only to move Blade along to the next fight scene. Thankfully, del Toro would win critics over in the superhero genre with his two Hellboy movies down the road.

David Lynch - Dune

David Lynch had a tremendous task cut out for him in Dune, and by most metrics to this day, he failed. The man who perfectly captured the life of The Elephant Man somehow couldn't find a proper way to adapt Frank Herbert's classic in a way that could be easily understood by its audience. The movie is widely considered a miss for Lynch, and while he's come close with a couple of features, it's the only movie of his considered "rotten" by critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

George Lucas- Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

George Lucas' track record is somewhat skewed considering 2/3rds of his directing work is for Star Wars projects, but he did create the franchise after all. Unfortunately, he also gifted the world the most critically panned entry in the franchise, The Phantom Menace. I thought it was fine in my younger years, but a recent re-watch made me question why plans for the trilogy weren't heavily reconsidered after that entry alone. Was the world just so desperate for more Star Wars that they looked past it? Obviously, there were people who knew right out the gate, as many critics were not shy to say this wasn't nearly on the same level as A New Hope.

Martin Scorsese- Boxcar Bertha

When it comes to violent movies that revolve around a world of crime, typically Martin Scorsese is the guy to call. That said, that wasn't known back when he made Boxcar Bertha, which was only his second directorial feature at the time. Hilariously enough, most of the complaints were due to the violence, which was often a criticism Scorsese has gotten for successive films that are now considered masterpieces. Unfortunately, Boxcar Bertha has not been nearly as acclaimed as the rest.

Tim Burton- Dark Shadows

Tim Burton has a knack for putting his own spin on classic stories, even with works that may not initially seem like they could work with his dark charm. Weirdly enough, Dark Shadows seemed like a perfect and relatively sensible fit for Burton, and he had Johnny Depp on board. It should've been a hit, but critics found the premise played out. The jokes fell flat and Burton was criticized for struggling to find a tone throughout the movie. Sometimes the "sure things" in Hollywood just don't work out in execution, and this movie is proof positive of that.

Peter Jackson - The Lovely Bones

Peter Jackson is known for a lot of things, but paranormal thrillers aren't really his bag. Sure, Frodo did turn invisible a handful of times in The Lord Of The Rings, but even in the context of all he'd done before this movie, The Lovely Bones was a pretty out-there film for Jackson. Of course, that was part of the point, as Jackson went on the record saying he enjoyed doing something that wasn't a large-scale epic for once. Three years later he was doing The Hobbit, though it's worth noting he wasn't the first choice.

Steven Spielberg - Hook

Hook is a beloved classic by many, but that was not how it was received by critics. This movie got a thorough thrashing for being an ill-begotten story of Peter Pan and was hated by critics so much that its aggregate Rotten Tomatoes score is a measly 28%. The movie was called unimaginative, the effects were not well integrated, and the overall story was garbled down by too many Hollywood ideals. Perhaps the biggest criticism was that it had such a great premise, but did so little to further adapt or bring in elements from the original story.

Ridley Scott - A Good Year

Similar to what I touched on earlier with Peter Jackson, there are things iconic directors are known for, and things they aren't. When you think of Ridley Scott, I highly doubt you think of romantic comedies. Scott has a wide range of movies he can make a hit, and with Russell Crowe as the lead in A Good Year, it stood to reason he could do it again. This time it just didn't happen, as the end result was seen as a soulless romantic comedy that went on a little too long. It's not necessarily bad, but certainly not one anyone needs to make time for.

David Fincher - Alien 3

The final entry is the most perhaps fitting, because not even David Fincher will defend Alien 3. The third installment in the Alien franchise already had a lot to live up to with the first two movies, which was directed by two other directing icons, Ridley Scott and James Cameron. Unfortunately, Fincher's film wasn't considered nearly as exciting or bold as the prior two films, though it has gathered its share of fans over the years. Still, when even Fincher himself disowns it, it's hard not to side with the crowd who thinks this sequel just wasn't up to par.

Spike Lee - She Hate Me

She Hate Me has all the ingredients for a great film. It's a challenging script from Spike Lee and Michael Genet, it has a dynamite cast that includes Anthony Mackie, in one of his earliest roles, and Kerry Washington in the lead roles, and, of course, is directed by Lee, one of the most acclaimed directors of the last 30+ years. The movie misses though, weighted down by the heavy message it tries to make while also trying to be a comedy. 

Barry Levinson - Sphere

After the huge success of Jurassic Park in 1993, Hollywood was clamoring to adapt other Michael Crichton novels. The mid and late '90s were chock full of adaptions like The 13th Warrior, Congo, Rising Sun, and Disclosure. Right in that mix was Barry Levinson's adaptation of Sphere and while the book was fantastic, the movie just falls flat, perhaps because people staring at mysterious orb for most of a movie isn't all that exciting. 

Sam Raimi - For Love Of The Game

Director Sam Raimi has a remarkable hit record, with only a couple movies rating below 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, the lowest being the Kevin Costner baseball movie For Love Of The Game. If you love Costner and baseball, it's actually a decent movie, but it isn't Raimi's best, that's for sure. 

Francis Ford Coppola - Jack

Francis Ford Coppola had a run in the 1970s that is almost unprecedented in Hollywood with The Godfather movies, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now. He found success in the 1980s too, with movies like The Outsiders and Tucker: A Man and His Dream. Then there is 1996's Jack. All you can ask is, "What were Coppola and Robin Williams thinking?"

Penny Marshall - Renaissance Man

The late Penny Marshall is a Hollywood icon for many reasons. Renaissance Man is not one of them. If you've never seen it (which wouldn't be surprising) think of it like Dead Poet's Society crossed with Pauly Shore's In The Army Now, and just as unfunny as the latter. Danny DeVito plays a guy who loves quoting Shakespeare and finds himself teaching army recruits how to read. That's all you need to know, really, there is no reason to ever watch it. 

Oliver Stone - Alexander

Oliver Stone knows how to tell a war story. His Vietnam films Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July rank among the best war movies of all time. His telling of the ancient battle of Alexander the Great in Alexander is as good. The original release was a hot mess and while he has improved it with a couple of subsequent director's cuts, it still doesn't hold a candle to his other films. 

Ivan Reitman - Father's Day

The late Ivan Reitman has always been hit-or-miss with critics. Even some of his most popular movies, like Twins, were poorly reviewed. His worst movie though, based on both audience and critics' scores. is Father's Day starring Billy Crystal and Robin Williams as two men trying to find their former lovers' son to determine which man is the father. It's... not funny, nor is it heartfelt. It's just a miss. 

Amy Heckerling - Night At The Roxbury

Clueless and Fast Times At Ridgemont High are two of the most beloved teen comedies of all time, both define two generations. For director Amy Heckerling they are high water marks in her career. On the other side of those is Night At The Roxbury. Though it’s her lowest-ranked movie on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s not the worst movie based on SNL characters, so it could be worse. 

Kathryn Bigelow - The Weight of Water

Oscar-winner Katheryn Bigelow is pretty picky about the movies she chooses to direct, and most of the time, she nails it, like The Hurt Locker, Point Break, and Zero Dark Thirty. Occasionally she misses, like The Weight Of Water. Though it’s nowhere near the worst movie on this list, it’s still the worst of her movies according to the critics on Rotten Tomatoes. 

The Coen Brothers - The Ladykillers

When your worst-reviewed movie on Rotten Tomatoes is still 54%, you’re doing pretty well. For the Coen Brothers, The Ladykillers is a very rare example of a miss, as they have 13 movies north of 80%. I’m a fan of The Ladykillers and I think it’s vastly underrated, but sticking with the rules, it’s the one of this list. I’d have Hail! Caesar at the bottom, however. 

Danny Boyle - The Beach

Before Alex Garland became an acclaimed director of movies like 2024’s Civil War, he was a novelist. He wrote The Beach in the ‘90s and captivated a generation of would-be adventure travelers. Combine that with the talents of the great director Danny Boyle and star Leonardo DiCaprio and you’d think there was no way the movie would be bad. The Beach isn’t terrible, but it’s not Boyle’s best work by far. It just misses the sense of adventure the novel has. 

Alfonso Cuarón - Great Expectations

Alfonso Cuarón takes his time when making a movie, and while Great Expectations is no exception, it falls short of the lofty expectations we have of the director. Sure, it’s based on a classic novel (though a modern retelling of the Dickens book) and it has a great cast, but it just misses. It’s certainly not up to his usual standards. 

Alex & Emma - Rob Reiner

Some of the best rom-coms of all time have been directed by Rob Reiner. Alex & Emma, starring Luke Wilson and Kate Hudson is not one of them. It’s a rare miss from the This is Spinal Tap director, with a brutal 11% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 

M. Night Shyamalan - The Last Airbender

M. Night Shyamalan has never really been a critical darling, but his fans always stick up for him, with one exception: The Last Airbender. The movie, based on the Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise, is despised by critics and fans alike, especially fans of the source material. 

Eagle Vs. Shark - Taika Waititi

As debut movies go, Taika Waititi’s Eagle Vs. Shark isn’t that bad. The director’s now-legendary humor is very evident, but it’s clearly a low-budget first outing for Waititi. It’s excusable, given what would come later. What is less excusable is the miss he had with Thor: Love & Thunder, but it’s still better ranked than this one, for some reason. If given the choice between the two, pick Eagle Vs. Shark.

James Cameron - Piranha II: The Spawning

Okay, so this one really isn’t fair. The worst movie that the great James Cameron directed is a B-movie called Piranha II: The Spawning. From the title alone, you know it’s going to be bad. There isn’t much redeemable about it, except that it got Cameron’s foot in the door in Hollywood and his next movie, The Terminator has a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, so you can ignore the 5% this one got. 

Ron Howard - Inferno

Did you know that Ron Howard and Tom Hanks teamed up for three movies based on the books of Dan Brown? You probably remember The Da Vinci Code and you might have even seen Angels & Demons but there is a third, terrible installment in the franchise called Inferno. CinemaBlend called Howard’s direction “slow, ponderous and dull,” which is not what you explicit from the Hollywood legend. 

Robert Altman - Beyond Therapy

Throughout his career, director Robert Altman had some serious highs, like The Player and MASH, but he also had some pretty low lows, and none were lower than Beyond Therapy in 1987. It came at a low point overall in the legendary director’s career, a time that also included similarly poorly reviewed movies like Popeye and O.C. and Stiggs.

Ivan Reitman - Beverly Hills Cop III

This one is a little unfair, because Ivan Reitman and Eddie Murphy have both made worse movies, but it likely suffers from coming on the heals of two previous Beverly Hills Cop movies that are, without a doubt, superior to this sequel. 

Elia Kazan - The Arrangement

There is no doubt of Elia Kazan’s place in Hollywood history. Considered one of the most influential directors of all time, fans of his can also boast that his movies launched the careers of actors like Marlon Brando and James Dean. However, not every movie he made was a classic and while The Arrangement has been somewhat re-evaluated in recent years, it still holds a dismal 15% ranking on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Brian De Palma - The Bonfire Of The Vanities

Tom Wolfe has only had a couple of books adapted into movies. The first, The Right Stuff is one of the best movies about The Cold War. The second, The Bonfire of the Vanities, directed by Brian De Palma, is… not very good. In fact, it’s pretty brutal. It tries hard to hit all the cultural critiques that Wolfe laid out in his novel, but it just doesn’t get the point across nearly as well. It’s a clunky mess. 

Richard Linklater - Bad News Bears

When he sticks with his own original stories and writes his own screenplays, Richard Linklater is a master. Movies like Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, and Boyhood are iconic. The Bad News Bears is also iconic, just not the remake Linklater directed in 2005. The original is far, far better. 

Gus Van Sant - Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

For Gen X, the combination of Gus Van Sant and novelist Tom Robbins was an enticing prospect. Sadly, the movie adaptation of Robbins’ classic Even Cowgirls Get The Blues is simply a disappointment, a very rare miss for Van Sant, especially at that point in his career coming off the back-to-back masterpieces Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho. 

Richard Linklater famously shot his 2014 film Boyhood, which was nominated for six Oscars, over the course of 12 years. The director’s latest film, Where’d You Go, Bernadette, is now playing in theaters but he’s already working on his next project. Taking a page from his Boyhood playbook, Richard Linklater has another highly ambitious, years-spanning movie on the way.

Collider has learned that Richard Linklater is directing a new multi-year movie that will be an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Merrily We Roll Along. As if Boyhood wasn’t ambitious enough, this film will be shot over a whopping 20 years. The film will star Pitch Perfect’s Ben Platt, Booksmart’s Beanie Feldstein, and American Animals’ Blake Jenner. Richard Linklater will produce the film alongside his longtime producer Ginger Sledge, as well as Jonathan Marc Sherman and Blumhouse’s Jason Blum.

Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, which ran on Broadway for 44 previews and 16 performances in 1981, is itself based on a 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. The play and musical both take place over the course of 20 years and chronicle the lives of three best friends in showbusiness.

At the center of the story is a Broadway composer named Franklin Shepard, who abandons his career in New York, as well as all of his friends, in order to go produce movies in Hollywood. The musical begins with Frank having achieved Hollywood success and fame and the story then moves backwards in time, highlighting important moments in his life that led him to that point.

According to The New York Times, Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some! collaborator Blake Jenner will play Franklin Shepard and Beanie Feldstein will play his best friend, theater critic Mary Flynn, with Ben Platt taking on the role of Charley Kringas, Frank’s lyricist.

Richard Linklater felt that the only way to do the story of Merrily We Roll Along justice was to shoot it over a time period that is true to the story itself. So Merrily We Roll Along will shoot periodically over 20 years to allow the cast to age. The film is being shot in reverse, as the end of the story, at least in the musical, finds the characters in their mid-20s. The first segment of the film has already been shot. So if the movie maintains the musical’s structure, the end of the film is already in the can.

This is an incredibly ambitious project for Richard Linklater and it dwarfs the 12-year Boyhood in terms of pure duration, eclipsing it by eight years. It’s pretty cool that there are filmmakers like Linklater trying stuff like this, especially in an time when technology would theoretically allow for him to just hire older actors and de-age them.

I would tell you the release date for Merrily We Roll Along, but there obviously isn’t one and well, we’ve got a ways to go before you have to worry about it. Merrily We Roll Along should hit theaters sometime in the 2040s I figure, planet pending of course.

If you don’t want to wait two decades to see your next movie, check out our 2019 Release Schedule to keep track of what’s headed to theaters this year.

We have been enjoying a solid run of music-based dramas at the movie theater lately. The music of The Beatles powered Danny Boyle’s Yesterday, while Rami Malek found Oscar success playing Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.

This week, it’s The Boss – aka Bruce Springsteen – who is getting the big screen treatment courtesy of the musical fantasy Blinded By the Light, a true story about a British teen who discovers the music and lyrics of Springsteen, and finds an unlikely muse. The movie’s a winner, an uplifting crowdpleaser directed by Bend it Like Beckham filmmaker Gurinder Chadha – who we are lucky enough to have as a guest on this week’s show.

Chadha joined the show shortly after Bruce Springsteen himself showed up at her film’s premiere in Asbury Park, New Jersey. She had amazing stories to tell about that evening, and the film’s production, so press play on this week’s ReelBlend episode and enjoy.

Before they got into the conversation with Gurinder Chadha, Jake, Kevin and Sean discussed the new trailer that dropped for Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, which you can see below.

Then Kevin told a really funny story about an old couple who mistakenly watched Good Boys. That did not end well.

As for this week’s Blend Game, the guys got into the films of Richard Linklater, and Jake did NOT pick a Texas movie. We were all shocked.

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Meanwhile, follow the guys on Social Media! We have an official Twitter feed for the show, so follow @ReelBlend. In addition, follow the guys at @Sean_OConnell, @JakesTakesand @KevinMcCarthyTV.

The process of creating movies is a funny thing. Because while the finished product might look like a polished and seamless story, filming is a long and inorganic experience. Shots are filmed from a variety of different angles, and actors are often only doing short scenes at a time. Then there's the preparation, where actors memorize their lines and learn the movements that the director wants to shoot. And for Richard Linklater's upcoming dramedy Last Flag Flying, it turns out that this process was an actor's dream-- at least according to what Laurence Fishburne told CinemaBlend.

We recently had the chance to speak with Laurence Fisburne at the Last Flag Flying press junket in New York City. It's here that the legendary actor explained that film's long rehearsal process, which allowed the trio of lead actors to feel truly comfortable when filming. Once again, Richard Linklater has proven himself to be an actor's director. While he made headlines for filming Boyhood over the course of 12 years, the director also given gave his Last Flag Flying cast the opportunity to truly be comfortable, and explore their many intimate scenes together.

The rehearsal process certainly seems to have payed off in Last Flag Flying. The majority of the film's scenes are shared between the trio of lead actors made up of Laurence Fishburne, Bryan Cranston, and Steve Carell. It's an intimate look at the cost of war, in both the past and present. The three Marine vets reflect on their time serving in the Vietnam War, the mistakes they made as young men, and how their lives have changed in the decades since they came home. Additionally, Steve Carell's Doc is also mourning the loss of his son, who died in the Iraq War.

Last Flag Flying's sensitive and often heartbreaking subject matter was handled delicately in the finished product, and all three leading actors are given their time to shine during the film's runtime. The open dialogue with Richard Linklater allowed the cast to have moments of improvisation, adding lines or bits from the 2005 novel that might not have necessarily made it into the script. And Laurence Fishburne seems to have enjoyed every moment of it.

You can check out my conversation with the actor below, where he described the fantastic preparation process for Last Flag Flying.

Last Flag Flying will arrive in select theaters on November 3rd. In the meantime, be sure to check out our 2018 release list to plan your trips to the movies in the New Year.

With the trend of nostalgia proving very profitable for both TV and film, there are plenty of revivals and long awaited sequels being produced regularly. But there is one such sequel that may have slipped under the radar: Richard Linklater's Last Flag Flying. An unofficial successor to 1973's The Last Detail, the upcoming film follows three Marine veterans who reunite after decades in the wake of a personal tragedy. The trio of actors are played by Steve Carell, Laurence Fishburne, and Bryan Cranston-- with the latter playing the role originated by Jack Nicholson in the first film. Cranston also has the responsibility of carrying much of the film's lighter moments, and he recently told CinemaBlend how he felt about that somewhat daunting task.

I recently had the privilege to speak with Bryan Cranston about his role Last Flag Flying at the film's press junket in New York City. When asked how he felt about being the film's primary comic relief, he said:

As always, Bryan Cranston proves why he's the one who knocks. Because rather than simply playing moments of comedy for the laughs, he's managed to find the true motivation for Sal's actions. This helps his performance from being one note, and allows the six time Emmy winner to flesh out his character in a new and exciting way.

And Bryan Cranston's performance in Last Flag Flying is as dynamic as you'd expect from the veteran actor. While the story's main narrative follows the grieving process for Steve Carell's character Doc, Cranston's Sal really helps to drive the narrative forward. After not seeing his Marine buddies for decades, he's determined to help out Doc... while also having a wild ride along the way. This includes purchasing the trio's first cell phones (the film is set in 2003), drinking his face off, and forcing Laurence Fishburne's Mueller to confront the hypocrisy in his holier than thou attitude. And while Last Flag Flying is having a fairly limited release, the performance by all three actors (especially Cranston) makes it worth the price of admission.

You can check out my conversation with Bryan Cranston below.

Last Flag Flying will arrive in select theaters on November 3rd. In the meantime, check out our 2018 release list to plan your trips to the movies in the New Year.

Jack Black and Richard Linklater are both fondly remembered for the 2003 comedy School of Rock, which featured Black's character teaching music to a bunch of amusing children, but if either of them had there way, that partnership would not have happened. Recently, both Jack Black and Richard Linklater revealed they absolutely did not want Linklater on board as the director of School of Rock. Jack Black told American Masters: Richard Linklater it wasn't a really easy fit to understand, noting,

I can kind of see his point. Now, Richard Linklater is known for Boyhood and Before Sunrise and A Scanner Darkly. At the time the movie was getting made, he was the Dazed and Confused and (still) Before Sunrise and Slacker guy, as Jack Black even mentioned ahead of the upcoming PBS special. No one at the time would accuse him of working on a bunch of broad comedies. Regardless, it wasn't just Jack Black who wasn't interested in seeing the director do School of Rock. Linklater himself recalled he really wanted nothing to do with the movie. He said,

So how the hell did Richard Linklater end up directing School of Rock and later producing the TV series based on the hit comedy? The answer is Scott Rudin. Well, it's not quite so simple. The producer apparently talked to Linklater's people and made it clear that the director was the man he saw for the job. Everyone likes to be fawned over a little bit, and sometimes it only takes one person's vision to get everyone else on board. Per Linklater,

The rest is history. School of Rock went on to make more than $131 million worldwide on a $35 million budget. It's not a movie that is noted on lists of highest grossers or anything, but it was a solid win for Paramount Pictures, and it has spawned a stage adaptation and a television show around the premise. Not bad for a project that no one wanted Richard Linklater on in the first place.

To find out more about Richard Linklater, you can take a look at American Masters: Richard Linklater - Dream is Destiny when it airs on PBS on September 1 at 9 p.m. ET.

As a director and actor duo, and occasionally as writing partners, Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke have worked on eight different films together – including one full trilogy and one project that shot over the course of 12 years. Clearly they’re very tight, and the good news is that their collaborations are far from over. In fact, we recently learned that the two men are currently working as a team on three different developing features.

I had the pleasure of chatting on the phone with Ethan Hawke late last month, as he was promoting his new film Born To Be Blue, and having recently also spoken with Richard Linklater, I was inspired to ask the actor if he was working with the writer/director on anything. Hawke confirmed that a trio of projects are currently in various stages of development, with one potentially coming together later this year. Said Hawke,

Along with Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater co-wrote both Before Sunset and Before Midnight (earning them two Academy Award nominations in the process), but the project described as being more "further down the line" is the one that intrigues me the most. After all, one of the actor and director collaborations was Boyhood - a film that could at one point been called a "further down the line" project that also stands as one of the most ambitious movies ever made.

Sadly, Ethan Hawke didn’t want to go into more detail about the projects simply because he has a phobia that relates to the idea that you shouldn’t count your chickens before they hatch:

For now you can currently see Ethan Hawke in Born To Be Blue online and in limited theaters, and you can look out for the duo of westerns In A Valley Of Violence and The Magnificent Seven later this year.

Because of its time setting, ensemble cast, and story approach, Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! i very clearly functions as a spiritual sequel to the great 1993 indie hit Dazed and Confused, but that isn’t the only past work of Linklater’s that had a big hand in the writer/director formulating new period comedy. His last movie,Boyhood, also had a very important role to play, as the two films were not only developed practically simultaneously, but the intimacy of the family story made him want to make something a bit broader with his follow-up.

I had the wonderful opportunity to sit down with Richard Linklater earlier this month down at the SXSW Film Festival (where Everybody Wants Some!! had its world premiere), and it was in discussing the inspirations for the film that the filmmaker explained the importance of Boyhood in the movie’s development. Given that it’s been 23 years since Dazed and Confused, I asked him if he would have made the spiritual sequel without the experience of making his Oscar-winning feature, and he began his answer by noting that thoughts about Everybody Wants Some!! and Boyhood came to him around the same time:

Obviously that’s a long time for a project to be developing, but Richard Linklater also credits the completion and success of Boyhood to getting Everybody Wants Some!! made. Not only did it surely put him in a better spot in terms of getting money and distribution, but the completion of the project also helped put him in the perfect mental space. Said Linklater,

You can watch Richard Linklater talk about the link between Everybody Wants Some!! and Boyhood in the video below:

Everybody Wants Some!! is now out in limited release, and will be in theaters nationwide on April 8th.

Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused is a truly remarkable film. The movie is one of the best coming-of-age stories that we’ve seen - outfitted with a wonderful collection of great actors, iconic performances, and one of the most endlessly listenable soundtracks we’ve heard – and it still remains as fresh and entertaining as ever. It’s a feature that never really needed a sequel, "spiritual" or otherwise - but somehow Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! - which just premiered at the SXSW Film Festival - still manages to feel like a project that we’ve been eagerly anticipating for the last 23 years.

Set in the fall of 1980 – giving the film a distinctly different flavor than its predecessor while possessing a similar vibe – the story centers on college freshman Jake (Blake Jenner), a baseball player who arrives at his Texas-based school and immediately finds himself mixed in with the ridiculous group of guys who will be both his teammates and housemates. In the days leading up to the first round of classes, Jake quickly assimilates with the tight-knit group of guys, bonding over girls, drinking, smoking weed, and playing ball. There’s no high-drama or strict script structure to speak of – instead playing as more of a "three days in the life" story – but with an eclectic ensemble of fun characters and a large collection of fantastically funny set-ups and situations, it hangs together as a great bit of cinema.

Because of the loose way in which it’s put together, appreciation for Everybody Wants Some!! almost entirely hangs on the audience’s feelings about hanging out with the gang of college baseball players at its center – but this is far from challenging, as you gain an immediate appreciation for their specific brand of rambunctiousness from the opening moments (which involves a ceiling nearly collapsing under the weight of a newly-filled waterbed). It’s a large ensemble to follow – with more than 10 characters playing integral parts in the narrative – but it’s made manageable just because of the wide variety of weird and great personalities that are thrown into the mix – including the disturbingly competitive McReynolds (Tyler Hoechlin); the borderline insane Jay Niles (Juston Street); the bad gambler Nesbit (Austin Amelio); the epic pothead Willoughby (Wyatt Russell), and the southern-fried Billy Autrey (Will Brittain). Not only do they stand out as individuals, but just like with Dazed and Confused, there is a legitimate simple pleasure in watching the rambunctiousness of youth, as they constantly find themselves in circumstances ripe for antics and shenanigans.

Ultimately it’s the film’s period setting that legitimately gives it that "spiritual sequel" feel, and just like how Richard Linklater perfectly encapsulated the mid-1970s with Dazed and Confused, Everybody Wants Some!! is a fantastic trip back in time to 1980. The aesthetics are all fantastically on-point, from the various feathered haircuts to the various bars and nightclubs the ensemble frequents, but once again Linklater has also put together a soundtrack that movie-fans will be listening to for decades. Featuring tracks from Van Halen (naturally), The Sugar Hill Gang, The Knack, Foreigner, and even a punk version of the Gilligan’s Island theme song, there is an incredibly mix of diegetic and non-diegetic songs that the writer/director utilizes brilliantly to create a specific and special atmosphere.

In the two-and-a-half decades since Dazed and Confused was released, Richard Linklater has ventured into a wide variety of different genres and visual styles, but Everybody Wants Some!! has the filmmaker prove that you sometimes can go home again. Like his 1993 film, the movie is a celebration of the fun and freedom of youth, and it’s simply in capturing this spirit that makes it succeed.

Though she is only 24 years old, Jennifer Lawrence has already had the opportunity to work with some truly amazing directors - and for her next film, The Rosie Project, she may get the chance to add another esteemed name to that list. According to reports, the movie is now eying Boyhood filmmaker Richard Linklater to helm.

Deadline has the news on this development, but there's no mention of whether or not an offer has been extended to the Austin-based director yet or if negotiations have begun in earnest yet. Should he sign on, Linklater will be replacing A-listers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who first became attached to The Rosie Project a little less than a year ago, and will be working with a script from duo Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber (The Spectacular Now, (500) Days of Summer).

Based on the novel of the same name by Graeme Simsion, The Rosie Project centers on a genetics professor named Dr. Don Tillman - who is an extremely anxious fellow who could almost be diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. Knowing that his social anxiety will likely prevent him from ever meeting a compatible woman, he begins to scientifically strategize how he can meet his perfect match. This results in the creation of a questionnaire he calls The Wife Project, and he intends to use it to find someone who is "punctual, non-drinking, non-smoking female who will fit in with his regimented lifestyle." Instead, his little experiment leads him to meet Rosie (Jennifer Lawrence) - a barmaid and free spirit who is on the hunt to find her biological father. She is the opposite of everything he is looking for... but may actually be his perfect match.

Phil Lord and Chris Miller were forced to drop the film from their slate after they signed on to the Han Solo movie that was announced a few weeks ago, leaving the door open for Richard Linklater to potentially take over. After earning incredible praise for Boyhood, Linklater has most recently been working on Everybody Wants Some, a baseball comedy that is said to be a spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused (a project that has been dated for release in April next year). As a filmmaker, he is best known for his independent work, but he has taken studio projects before - most notably the PG -13 remake of Bad News Bears starring Billy Bob Thornton.

The Rosie Project seems to still be in the very early stages of development, but should Sony be able to get Richard Linklater on-board the movie could get on the fast track (who doesn't want to see a Richard Linklater movie starring Jennifer Lawrence?) Hopefully we'll have more updates about this film soon, so stay tuned for more info.

Conventional thinking dictates that for a film which experienced bountiful buzz and awesome accolades like Boyhood, a sequel of some kind would be inevitable. Of course, the Richard Linklater drama was anything but conventional, so that mode of thinking may not be applicable in this case. Or is it? In a recent interview, star Ethan Hawke gave his thoughts to the idea of sequel.

Sitting down with Collider, Ethan Hawke weighed in on the notion of a sequel film; especially after director, Richard Linklater recently wavered on his initial reservations towards the idea. At the moment, nothing is in the works, and as far as Hawke is concerned, there is only one answer. As he explains,

Ethan Hawke makes an interesting point regarding the form of Boyhood and its possible narrative limitations. The film seemed designed as kind of a snapshot into a random life, rather than some drama carrying a weight of self-importance towards a protagonist. It wasn’t necessarily the specific life of young Mason that was intrinsically important to the film’s effect. Rather, it was that the structure of this decade-plus snapshot of his life -- and the relatability to the audience -- that seemed to be the crux of the film.

A perennial cleaner-upper during this past winter’s awards show season, save for "the big one" at the Academy Awards, Boyhood proved to be an artistic and utilitarian accomplishment in the unsung category of commitment. Director Richard Linklater would create the most definitive unraveling of continuity ever in a work, filming young Ellar Coltrane, who would quite literally grow into his role as Mason, from ages 6 to 18. The film completely broke new ground in its chronological production approach, yet showed itself to be a work that, in a certain sense, retained Linklater’s scattershot, sporadic focus on drama that seemingly unfurls on its own.

Thus, the grasp that Boyhood has on the audience was, in a Linklater-esque fashion, fleeting by its nature, as the titular time in one’s life was essentially the film’s "star." (Rather than, comparatively, a love-struck couple in Linklater’s Before films.) As Ethan Hawke would further imply in the interview, once you leave that structured "grid" of grade school, lives become radically disparate and certainly less relatable in the same cinematic scope. In that sense, moving past the depicted boyhood of Boyhood might be moot. A potential "quarter-life crisis" film might come across as detrimentally myopic.

It does seem that Boyhood was a once-in-a-career experiment that probably would not lend itself well to duplication. However, for all we know, another innovative idea could be ruminating in the mind of the eccentric Austinite, Richard Linklater, that’s equally as innovative, but may not be so time-consuming. While the life of Mason captivated many, audiences probably won’t want to stick with him long enough to see him register for his AARP card.

While Richard Linklater flew closer to the Best Picture Oscar sun with his Golden Globes-dominating film, Boyhood than he ever had before, the prestigious gold statue ended up eluding him. (Save for the Best Supporting Actress win for Patricia Arquette.) Now, the Texas filmmaker is circling another project that could end up, in much the same spirit of Boyhood, being an innovative, original look at the concept of family based off a book called Where’d You Go Bernadette.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Richard Linklater is in talks for a directorial effort that would be an adaptation of the 2012 best-selling novel by Maria Semple, Where’d You Go Bernadette: A Novel. The novel’s satirical, unorthodox plot depicts a young girl’s quest to find her brilliant, but capricious mother at the ends of the Earth. The film could very well continue the usage of what now seems to be Linklater’s new thematic toy, the idea of a depiction of family.

The plot of Bernadette focuses on a Seattle-based woman named Bernadette Fox, who is depicted as being somewhat of a misunderstood genius. Once celebrated as an innovate architect with a successful husband in the tech industry and possessing a special relationship with her 15 year-old daughter, Bee, she nevertheless seems to find herself misunderstood by conventional folks. The pressure begins to stifle her creative nature, which, for some reason, has caused her to suffer a bit of agoraphobia. She’s on the edge and her life is barely held together by a virtual assistant based in India. In an inexplicable whim, Bernadette uses a family trip to Antarctica (where creative, eccentric people love to holiday,) as an opportunity to completely disappear off the face of the Earth. The story then becomes a duel narrative about young Bee’s investigation to track down her mother and of Bernadette’s own journey of self-realization.

The story may sound like a case of an agenda-driven author injecting a sense of self-aggrandizement into a rather indulgent, transparently-crafted protagonist designed to make a statement about the world’s inability to understand her own genius. However, the storyline is much more self-deprecating and satirical than it sounds. In fact, it could provide Richard Linklater with a lot fertile ground to explore his new-found focus on the family unit, with this rather eccentric group and their absurd predicament which seems to amalgamate the 1990’s children’s property, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? with Ayn Rand’s own "misunderstood genius architect" story, The Fountainhead.

At this point in his career, Linklater, who first garnered attention for the subversive quasi-vérité filmmaking style of 1991’s Slacker, seems to be looking at the past to draw themes to his current, more drama-driven projects. In that sense, Bernadette seems to fit that archetype. Demonstrating this idea, is the fact that Linklater recently claimed that his next picture, That’s What I’m Talking About, a 1980’s period piece focusing on the lives of college baseball players will be a "spiritual sequel" and "continuation" to both his 1993 breakthrough, Dazed and Confused and the recent Boyhood. (For which Linklater recently teased a more conventional sequel.)

We could probably surmise that the centerpiece relationship between mother and son which successfully garnered Patricia Arquette her Oscar with Boyhood might shift Linklater’s focus to the clearly eccentric relationship between Bendadette and Bee -- in that sense, bringing it into this "spiritually" connected series of his films. However, this one won’t likely take him 12 years.

Boyhood, by design, doesn’t lend itself easily to a sequel. Richard Linklater famously spent 12 years creating his Oscar-winning masterpiece, filming the same actors once a year for longer than a decade. What, would we have to wait another 12 years to see a follow up? All Linklater is saying is that there’s a possibility.

On a recent episode of Jeff Goldsmith’s Q-and-A podcast, Richard Linklater admitted that he has been warming up to the idea of following his Boyhood characters further than he had initially planned. The director says that he has fielded that question numerous times as Boyhood reached new audiences, and he always shot it down. He says that he had "no idea about another story," and he didn’t give a sequel much thought. Now, however, that thought process has changed:

If you have followed Richard Linklater’s career, this should come as no surprise. After all, the director tends to reunite his actors Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy every few years to explore the evolving relationship of Jesse and Celine in the Before trilogy. And this series has taught Linklater new ways to approach unique timelines that would be necessary for a Boyhood follow up. The director notes:

Boyhood might not have won the Oscar for Best Picture, but it is a beloved film that has a 98% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and banked $25 million domestically. It’s a stunning achievement for Linklater, and I’m certain audiences would love to follow the family that we met and fell in love with in the film. Will the director find more things to say about them? And will it take quite as long for him to complete the vision? Let’s see how this develops.

Though individual tastes make it so that ever person on earth has a completely different concept of what makes a great movie, surely one element that can be appreciated universally is simple idea of a film delivering something new. None of us enjoy seeing the same characters and stories over and over again, and it’s when a filmmaker tries and succeeds at doing something different that we all stand up and take notice. Perhaps even more effective than showing something new, however, is the power to make audiences feel something new, emotionally connecting us to a piece of big screen fiction unlike anything before. It’s a rare and magical thing for any movie to do both, but that’s exactly why Richard Linklater’s Boyhood deserves to take home this year’s Academy Award for Best Picture.

There are multiple critics who have painted Linklater’s film as little more than a gimmick, arguing that the 11-year process that it took to get the film made ultimately overshadows anything else it brings to the table, but that’s a very narrow mindset. In the making of Boyhood, the director not only took a rather radical and impressive approach to both story and structure – ignoring the standard in favor of something more complicated and realistic – but also discovered a whole new approach to getting a deep empathetic response from an audience. The fact that these elements worked together in harmony after an incredibly long and risky production is actually nearly miraculous, and as the complete package is the argument for why it should be given Hollywood’s highest honor this year.

While most coming of age stories carve out one huge moment in a lead character’s life that catapults them from childhood to adulthood, Boyhood is truly the complete opposite of that convention, but still uses its compelling year-by-year structure to create a movie that is as dramatic, funny, and compelling as any other best example of the genre. Without the aid of any kind of larger arc driving all of the various plot strings of the film, what Linklater does is provide key slices of life that tell us everything we need to know about all the characters at a certain age, while expertly trusting the audience to fill in the gaps and understand the full breadth of the story. When packaged together with expert pacing that ensures that no moment feels ancillary and that each character gets proper exposure, the result is actually a piece of narrative genius that probably shouldn’t work nearly as well as it does.

It’s that same pacing that makes Boyhood’s near three hour runtime feel reasonable – but what’s kind of crazy is that same runtime actually seems short in light of the immense emotional impact that the movie inevitably has on the viewer. By the time Ellar Coltrane's Mason is all grown up and heading off to college to start his adult life, you can’t help but feel like you’re saying goodbye to someone that you’ve known for years. We’ve seen this kind of emotional pull in fiction before, whether it’s the series finale of a long running television show, or the final chapter in a storied big screen franchise, but for Richard Linklater to achieve that kind of feeling in just one feature is unprecedented and beyond impressive.

It’s ultimately a film’s story and style that should be the factors that determine a title’s worthiness to be named Best Picture at the Academy Awards, but in the case of Boyhood, the approach that Richard Linklater took to the material is just icing on the cake. In planning to make a movie over the course of more than a decade, the director not only opened himself up to all kinds of potential catastrophes, but was also forced at each step along the way to really trust that he had all of the material he needed in order to construct a cogent, entertaining story. Given the amount of risk involved, there was every chance that what could have come out at the end was a total disaster, but the fact that it wound up being one of the best movies of 2014 puts it on a pedestal above the rest of the competition.

It is perhaps the greatest tradition of the Oscars to award the film that is conventional and fits into the organization’s rigid sensibilities, but this year they have the opportunity to crown a film that is unique in every facet, from its storytelling to its emotional impact to its production. Boyhood deserves to win this year’s Best Picture prize, and it would be a significant shame if it didn’t get recognized.

For Entertainment Weekly’s latest cover, the editorial team decided to feature Richard Linklater’s incredible film, Boyhood. A fantastic choice, to say the least: it swept most of the major categories at the Golden Globes, and it’s a surefire front-runner for the Oscars. Upon looking at the magazine’s finished product, however, the image they chose to run with just looks…well, kind of creepy.

The idea definitely seems cool — Boyhood was filmed over the course of 12 years, and during that time we saw its star Ella Coltrane grow up on screen from a young boy to an adult. So why not find some way to include the three key stages of his character’s story in one cover? Perhaps it’s the Photoshop, especially around 11-year-old Coltrane, but the image gives off a "Come play with us, Danny" vibe than something suitable for the glowing Oscar contender it is.

Despite this haunting image, it’s pretty safe to say that Boyhood will dominate the Oscar nominations when they’re announced tomorrow morning. We’re sure Richard Linklater is thrilled by the attention he’s receiving for Boyhood, but it didn’t seem as though something as small as an under-the-radar indie film could emerge as the darling of awards season. As Linklater told EW:

So far, Boyhood has won three Golden Globes: Best Picture, Drama; Best Director for Linklater; and Best Supporting Actress, Drama for Patricia Arquette. It also has a buttload of SAG, BAFTA and Critics Choice nominations to its name, in addition to all the critical acclaim its received (especially from President Obama). And all signs are pointing to some major victories this Oscar season. Some other buzzed-about contenders this year are the Martin Luther King, Jr. pic Selma, Brits Benedict Cumberbatch and Eddie Redmayne for The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything, and Julianne Moore’s Still Alice. Despite all this strong competition and the chaos of awards campaigning, Boyhood has remained on everyone’s minds. It is truly a piece of cinematic history that we might never see replicated in our lifetimes.

I wish the same could be said of its EW cover…

Could Richard Linklater have his own shared cinematic universe in the works? It seems like a farfetched notion, we know, as Dazed and Confused and his most recent film, Boyhood, are not directly linked. But that's not stopping the filmmaker from drawing a connection between those two movies and his next project. The director is currently busy working on his next film, which he's previously described as a "spiritual sequel" of his classic period dramedy, Dazed and Confused, and now he's added that the feature will also be a continuation of sorts to his most recent hit, Boyhood.

Linklater brought up this connection while speaking with Creative Screenwriting, first by explaining how the upcoming That’s What I’m Talking About is a "spiritual sequel" to Dazed and Confused and then going on to describe it as a sort of continuation of his 11-years-in-making epic... though not in the traditional sense:

The concept of "coming-of-age" seems to be one that fascinates Richard Linklater, given that a small chunk of his career has been dedicated to telling these kinds of stories, most notably in Dazed and Confused and Boyhood. Sadly, there will never be anything quite like the director's most recent film, as that undertaking was really quite extraordinary, but it sounds like That’s What I’m Talking About has a chance to hit on similar, albeit more mature notes. The movie won't feature any characters or story continuations from Dazed and Confused or Boyhood, but it sounds like the themes and conflicts that we all recognize from those eras of our lives will be further developed.

Linklater's upcoming period film has been described as following a college freshman as he gets acquainted with his roommates and a girl over the course of a weekend. As the director mentions, this makes its thematic connections to Boyhood rather obvious, as that's really where we left Ellar Coltrane’s Mason at the end of his childhood story. That's What I'm Talking About is populated with a cast of rising talent, including Tyler Hoechlin, Wyatt Russell, Ryan Guzman, Zoey Deutch, Will Brittain, and Glen Powell. That probably means, unfortunately, no surprise cameo from Matthew McConaughey's David Wooderson.

Matthew McConaughey, of the McConaughnessance McConaugheys, has a easy-going motto of "Just keep living." But that doesn't mean this breezy, bongo-playing Texan hasn't had his moments of sheer outrage. One of those came leveled at long-time friend and colleague Richard Linklater, when McConaughey learned he'd lost out on a role he desperately wanted to Jack Black. You might rightly wonder in what world McConaughey and Black would ever be up for the same role. Planet McConaughey, baby.

Yahoo reports how Matthew McConaughey mistakenly believed he'd been cast as the lead in Richard Linklater's 2012 dark comedy Bernie, meaning the titular mild-mannered man accused of murder. But in reality, Linklater had selected the handsome leading man to play Danny Buck Davidson, the tough-minded district attorney who has a little bit of cowboy in his attitude, and essentially serves as Bernie's antagonist. McConaughey wasn't going to take this lying down.

McConaughey tells the makers of the upcoming documentary 21 Years: Richard Linklater that he demanded Richard Linklater allow him to audition against Jack Black for the part of Bernie. "I thought I could knock that out of the park," he laments. Linklater declined, and cast Black as planned.

Now, McConaughey is a great actor, as he's proven in Magic Mike, The Wolf of Wall Street, Mud and Dallas Buyers Club -- not to mention HBO's True Detective. However, here he overlooks one major element of casting: his looks. After all, Bernie wasn't just a dark comedy, but a biopic of sorts, based on the surprisingly charming and beloved murderer Bernie Tiede.

Dare to compare Jack Black, Bernie Tiede, and Matthew McConaughey below:

Blending documentary-style interviews with Tiede's friends and neighbors with a narrative approach to unfolding his story, Linklater was striving to be true to the subject that was stranger than fiction. Bernie included the development of his friendship with octogenarian Marjorie "Marge" Nugent, the eventual souring of that bond, her subsequent murder, and how the town surprisingly rallied around Tiede when the killing was uncovered. It's easy to see why McConaughey wanted the role, but a bit funny that he couldn't see why he wasn't right for it.

Richard Linklater responded to this surprising story of casting conflict by explaining of McConaughey, who'd previously starred in the director's Dazed and Confused and The Newton Boys, "He’s a character actor sometimes trapped in a leading man’s body."

#McConaugheyProblems

21 Years: Richard Linklater includes interviews with Keanu Reeves, Billy Bob Thorton, Jack Black, Kevin Smith, Parker Posey, Mark Duplass, Zac Efron and more. It opens on November 7th.

The WB has strangely been trying to get a remake of The Incredible Mr. Limpet off the ground for years, even though the vaguely-remembered comedy turns fifty this year. Starring Don Knotts, the Arthur Lubin-directed film has been up for a remake, most recently with Richard Linklater attached to direct and Zach Galifianakis starring. But there was no movement for years, suggesting the project was dead. Not so fast, said destiny. The Incredible Mr. Limpet is finally returning to screens.

The Wrap claims that Jon Hamm is one of many big names circling The Incredible Mr. Limpet. Given that the project would mix animation and live-action, Hamm would star in the live-action portion of the film as the villain of the piece. While Limpet was a bookkeeper in the original film, Galifianakis would be playing him as a beach bum desperate to save the local fish population. Hamm's character would be an industrialist mining the ocean floor. Also in talks are Danny McBride and Sarah Silverman, while Kevin Hart, Josh Gad, Keegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele would provide voices for the animated portion.

Presumably this would keep the bifurcated structure of the original film, where Limpet morphs into a fish and goes on a series of animated adventures. Linklater is getting in contact with Femke Wolting and Tommy Pallotta, who assisted him with the rotoscoping sequences in both Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, suggesting that at least some of the animated sequences will at least be partially filmed. Warner Bros. is eying a fall start date, though that would be exclusively reserved for the animation and rotoscoping, with the live-action material shot in early 2015.

The original film, the trailer of which you can see above, told the story of an intellectual loner, a loopy dreamer who, upon shapeshifting, began to fight the Nazis. So, yeah, pretty strange! Based on the novel Mr. Limpet by Theodore Pratt, the material seems like an odd fit not only for Boyhood director Linklater, but also for contemporary times. There's a commentary to be made on how Knotts' bookkeeper is now Galifianakis' "beach bum," but the hope is that Linklater would completely subvert expectations and produce something daring and unusual.

The Incredible Mr. Limpet has been in development for two decades, attached to a number of different actors and directors. Robin Williams and Jim Carrey are just two of the names linked to the story, with directors like Steve Oedekerk (Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls), Mike Judge (Office Space) and Kevin Lima (Enchanted) in talks. With this cast being rumored for the film, there's a very good chance Mr. Limpet will finally swim back onto screens to the delight of the seventy year old core demographic.

They teamed up for the 2012 political comedy The Campaign. Now Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis are reuniting for an outrageous comedy that is based on true events, and is decidedly stranger than fiction.

The Wrap reports Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis will headline an upcoming comedy from director Richard Linklater, best-known for his Before Trilogy: Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight. Called Larry's Kidney, Linklater's latest will focus on the true but wild story of Daniel Asa Rose, a writer and newspaper editor pulled into a world of espionage, underground crime, and medical tourism when his estranged cousin asks him to help save his life.

Larry's Kidney will be based on Rose's heralded comedic memoir, which boasts a mouthful of a title: Larry's Kidney: Being the True Story of How I Found Myself in China with My Black Sheep Cousin and His Mail-Order Bride, Skirting the Law to Get Him a Transplant--and Save His Life. It's a bulky title but a great elevator pitch that teases out several elements that could make for a scintillating and silly screenplay.

The specifics of Daniel and Asa's story as are these. Daniel Asa Rose was a celebrated writer and family man, but he hadn't talked to his cousin Larry for fifteen years following a falling out over Larry's calling the FBI on Daniel for lying on his mortgage application. But when Larry called Daniel in a panic because his liver was failing, all the bad blood was forgotten, and Daniel agreed to do whatever it took to save his cousin's life. With liver transplants in the U.S. being hard to come by with a waitlist of some 74,000 people, Larry--who Daniel has described as "gun-toting couch potato"--decides to travel to China to have the procedure done.

This is called medical tourism, and not only is it taboo, it's often illegal. In China, it's forbidden to perform organ transplants on Westerners. But Larry is confident his money will convince whoever needs convincing. So the cousins book passage. But while they're at it, Larry also decides he may as well take the opportunity to engage in another taboo activity, picking up a mail order bride. Funded by a quarter million dollar medical settlement, Larry and Daniel head to China to seek out love and a kidney. Along the way they will attempt to elude law enforcement and reconnect as family.

Will Ferrell is set to star as Daniel Asa Rose, while Zach Galifianakis has been lined up to play Larry. It's a character and plot he seems well suited to, as Larry's Kidney could easily be the premise for The Hangover: Part IV -- Alan Needs A Kidney.

Notably, this won't be the first comedy that Richard Linklater has adapted from real life. In 2011, he co-wrote and helmed the dark comedy/biopic Bernie about a small town Texan murderer named Bernie Tiede. The film and its anti-hero made headlines recently when Tiede was released from prison, in part because Linklater offered him an apartment within his own home. It'll be interesting to see if Linklater grows as close to cousin Larry.

This later chunk of Richard Linklater’s career is marked by films that have something going for them beyond just the story being told, from the animation style of A Scanner Darkly to the faux documentary about real events of Bernie. Almost topping the nine-year gaps between the films of his Before trilogy is the production story behind Boyhood, his coming of age drama twelve years in the making. The film will be making its debut in the most natural place imaginable, at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. We’re assuming they’re showing the entire film, and not just the first of 12 annual ten minute chunks.

Those attending Sundance can catch the film’s special preview screenings starting next Sunday, January 19 at the Eccles Theater. To mark the announcement, Sundance released two new stills from the film. This isn’t the kind of movie that revolves around some big mystery, so the images don’t give away anything too revealing, but we do get to see the main character Mason (Ellar Coltrane) at two different ages. And if that isn’t the main draw of watching this time-lapsing film, then I’m not sure what is. The second image is below.

The film stars Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as the parents of Mason and Samantha (Lorelei Linklater). Filmed for a week or two at a time once a year from 2002 through 2013, Boyhood doesn’t appear to be about a specific story, but rather a journey into the lives of these characters from one year to the next, and how time informs relationships just as much as the limited events that most films’ timeframes cover.

This is also a longer film, with a runtime of 164 minutes. It’s still a bit of a mystery at this point how the footage will be dispersed throughout the film, but there’s enough room to fit quite a few of Linklater’s signature conversation pieces. It will be a challenge for such an approach to carry the rewatchability of a more traditional film, but this is one of the few directors who could pull such an experiment off.

Even with such a novel hook, Boyhood will still have to work hard to stand out against the other 120 features that will be screening at this year's Sundance, with 35 in competition. Below you can watch Linklater and Hawke hinting at the project back in 2001 when they were promoting the conversational drama Tape.

Bill Bryson is one of America’s most interesting travel writers, able to weave together humor in with what it takes to be a human on Earth, instead of just listing locations and describing their histories. His frequent dabblings in science, history and language are just as interesting, but aren’t as easy to adapt. Robert Redford has been trying to get Bryson’s 1998 travel diary A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail produced for around eight years now, with directors like Chris Columbus and Barry Levinson coming into the fold and leaving without a lot of progress following those announcements.

Let’s hope we aren’t being dragged down an Appalachian Trail of false hopes here, as the L.A. Times reports cult director Richard Linklater has taken the reins on the independently financed project, which Redford is still set to produce. Linklater is still riding the buzz from the third film in his Ethan Hawke/Julie Delpy Sunrise/Midnight series, which our own Katey took quite a liking to. Fingers crossed, Redford said Linklater could have the film in production as early as this fall.

A Walk in the Woods will feature Redford playing Bryson and Nick Nolte as Bryson’s recovering alcoholic friend Stephen Katz as the two men share various observations about the entirety of the world around them as they make the 2,100 mile trek. Considering the beginning of Linklater’s career was filled with existential dialogue-driven films, this seems like a perfect fit on all fronts.

Redford, whose last directorial efforts were the thrillers The Conspirator and the upcoming Weather Underground-inspired thriller The Company You Keep, doesn’t seem too angry to leave the high stakes dramas alone for a while.

“A Walk in the Woods is the kind of movie that has something to say but can also be really commercial because it’s just so funny,” says Redford. “It will be nice to get back to doing a comedy.” And it will be nice to see Nick Nolte play Nick Nolte in a movie again.

When I reviewed Richard Linklater's Before Midnight from the Sundance Film Festival in January, I went out of my way to write a review that spoiled absolutely nothing about where we found Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) in the latest installment of the series. When we last saw them in Before Sunset they had reunited in Paris, and as Jesse sat entranced by the woman he'd first met on a train in Vienna 9 years earlier, Celine teased him "Babe, you're gonna miss that plane…" Did he miss the plane? Did they stick together? Fans had waited nine years to find out, and I wasn't about to reveal it in a hastily written festival review.

But now that this first trailer, which premiered at Yahoo!, is out there, it seems safe to talk about it. Jesse and Celine are together. They have two daughters. They are spending the summer in gorgeous Greece… and as you can see, their "happily ever after" still has plenty of hurdles to clear. And that's really all we need to talk about, because even when the basic setup of the story is revealed, there are plenty of wonderful surprises in Before Midnight that everyone deserves to be able to discover on their own.

After premiering at Sundance and taking a stop at SXSW, Before Midnight is heading for a spot at the Tribeca Film Festival before opening in theaters on May 24. It's Linklater's first film since last year's criminally underrated Bernie, but more importantly, it's the latest installment of a series that we hope keeps going as long as Hawke, Linklater and Delpy are on this earth.

Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke had so deftly shot down recent rumors about a third Before Sunrise movie that I honestly started to believe them… which, it turns out, was playing exactly into their plans. Turns out the two stars really had reunited with director Richard Linklater for Before Midnight, a third low-key romance between Celine and Jesse, their third together since 1995's Before Sunrise and 2004's well-received sequel, Before Sunset.

The film, which literally wrapped production yesterday, will be sold at the Toronto Film Festival this week, according to Deadline. In it Celine and Jesse will reunite in Messinia, Greece, and all the three collaborators would say about the plot was this: “It’s great to be back together again, this time in beautiful Greece to revisit the lives of Celine and Jesse nine years after Jesse was about to miss his flight.” Before Sunset ended with Hawke's character trying to catch his flight out of Paris, with Delpy's character teasing him and telling him he'd miss it. Did he catch it? Did he stay with her? Now we get to know!

It's almost always a terrible idea for sequels to come to a much-beloved film long after the fact, but the series of collaborations between Linklater, Delpy and Hawke has always seemed to be the exception to the rule. It's unlikely anyone other that buyers will see footage from Before Midnight in Toronto, but given how many people love the first two, you can almost guarantee you'll get to see it sometime within the next year.

Good things are supposed to come in threes. Is that why Hollywood obsesses over the trilogy, trying to bring every franchise to that not-so-round number of three before they tie everything up with a precise bow? Even films that don’t set themselves up for natural sequels are finding their way to Part Three. Like Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.

Yes, the Richard Linklater talkers that paired Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy for lengthy conversations about life and love apparently will spawn one more go-round of insightful verbal sparring … at least, according to Hawke. While speaking with IndieWire on behalf of his The Woman in the Fifth, Hawke revealed that he’ll reunite with Linklater and Delpy for a third effort, and soon.

People give a shit now. Not that these films are box-office juggernauts. But critics fawn over the collaborations (and rightfully so), so the idea that they’ll attempt another is wildly appealing. It has been eight years since star-crossed lovers Jesse (Hawke) and Celine (Delpy) last reunited in France. Maybe Linklater can hold the third chapter for 2014, giving the couple a 10-year reunion to see where life has taken them.

The Before films actually could – and should – extend beyond a third film. Much like Michael Apted’s Up documentaries, audiences simply could check back in with Hawke and Delpy at different stages of their lives to see how we measure up against their progress. The budgets are low, the value is high … so long as Hawke, Delpy and Linklater are game every 10 years or so, would you be interested in watching?

Geez, talk about dragging a relationship out. Back in 1995, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy played Jesse and Celine, two strangers who meet on a train and spent one magical night together in Vienna before going their separate ways. In 2004, the star-crossed lovers ran into each other again, this time in Paris, and again flirted with the possibility of what their lives would be like together before, again, heading off in different directions. Now it sounds like director Richard Linklater and stars Hawke and Delpy are thinking about reuniting Jesse and Celine yet again for a second Before... sequel.

The Playlist called our attention to the news, which originated in an interview Hawke gave to the French website Allocine. According to Hawke, the trio have been itching to put together a new entry in the series, possibly aiming to shoot next summer. Said Hawke,

If they work the same way they did on Before Sunset, all three of them will collaborate on the screenplay and then Linklater will direct, so it will likely depend on whether they can find a mutual gap in their schedules. Fingers crossed, lovers of romantic philosophizing and unfulfilled love.

We've written twice before about plans for a remake of the 1964 Don Knotts film The Incredible Mr. Limpet, and both times the news hasn't gone anywhere, so take this latest story with a grain of salt. According to The LA Times, Warner Bros. is close to offering the remake directing job to Richard Linklater, the indie filmmaking stalwart behind Dazed & Confused and Before Sunrise who has met with the studio several times about the project.

Though at one point last year Zach Galifianakis was in talk to play the role Knotts originated, as a man who turns into a fish and helps America fight the Nazis, the actor no longer seems to be attached. Given that the original film combined live-action and animation in a way that seemed revolutionary at the time, Warner Bros. likely wants Linklater on board for his own experience in animation thanks to Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly. It seems unlikely he'd use the same rotoscope realism technology seen in those films, but the fact that Linklater is both a good storyteller and someone interested in new animation technology makes him a surprisingly good fit for the material, even if he's never made anything resembling this kind of family film.

Again, we've reported before that this movie was happening, and there doesn't seem to be any timeline in place to put the movie in production. Still, Linklater seems like a good guy to take this on, and one of the few directors who could sign on for this and actually make me interested. If this news pans out we may actually have something to look forward to from a remake that initially seemed totally unnecessary.

I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Jack Black. He can be a great actor when he wants to presents himself as a human being, but more often than not he is this astoundingly obnoxious caricature of himself who can scarcely be tolerated. We should all hope for the human being version to appear in Richard Linklater’s Bernie, the director’s self-proclaimed Fargo, in which Black will now play the lead role of Bernhardt Tiede.

Bleeding Cool brings this to us after hearing Linklater talk at a screening of Fast Food Nation last month. He also let slide that Shirley MacLaine would be Black’s co-star in a film that he wrote simply based on this rather odd article found over a decade ago in Texas Monthly:

It certainly sounds like the story could bring out an interesting dynamic between Black and MacLaine, and should give Black some room to stretch his acting chops instead of just playing the goofy idiot. Linklater says he is turning the story into a dark comedy of sorts with room for about 50 characters. That might be excessive, but expect there to be some quirk side roles that poke their heads in and out for comic relief.

The director was raised in East Texas so he’s looking to make this film as authentic as possible, reaching for non-actors in the community. He says there are many roles for Texans over 40. The film shoots on location this fall.