Richard Linklater doesn’t tend to stay idle for too long. It was only a few months ago that his latest, “Everybody Wants Some!!” hit theaters and fizzled, but he’s a director with a long track record and some great films too, so it’s not a surprise he’s got some top talent aligned for his next movie — one that loosely follows a ’70s classic film.
Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell, and Laurence Fishburne are all in talks to star in Linklater’s “Last Flag Flying.” The filmmaker is penning the script to the movie which is something of a quasi-sequel to “The Last Detail,” and catches up with Billy Bad-Ass, Mule, and Meadows as they grapple with post-9/11 American and the Iraq War. Here’s the official synopsis of the novel by Daryl Ponicsan on which its based:
Darryl Ponicsan never imagined that his first novel, “The Last Detail”, called by one critic “…the first underground triumph of the 70s…” would be a continuing story. With the invasion of Iraq, however, the same elements that inspired the original – injustice, a senseless war, men of honor and duty caught in untenable positions – compelled him to revisit Billy Bad-Ass, Mule, and the hapless Meadows, and to see how his characters were faring in post-9/11 American life. The result is “Last Flag Flying”, a story as tough and tender. sad and funny. as “The Last Detail”. The boy Billy and Mule escorted to prison has come back into their lives, now a grieving man of 52, with a gut-wrenching request they cannot deny. What follows is a retracing of their steps from 34 years before, a journey from Norfolk, Virginia, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on a mission as heart-breaking – and as exhilarating – as the first.
Well, this is certainly unexpected and interesting to say the least, but also matches with Linklater’s continual approach of upending expectations. And “Last Flag Flying” is already spurring interest, with Amazon looking to finance and distribute the film. [Variety]