Buoyed by the remarkable success of Everybody Wants Some!!, director Richard Linklater is remaining firmly in the realm of spiritual successors with his latest creative venture, Last Flag Flying.
It’s already off to a flyer – no pun intended – as The Hollywood Reporter brings word that Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston and Laurence Fishburne have all opened negotiations to board the long-gestating project, one described as a quasi-sequel to Darryl Ponsican novel The Last Detail.
Indeed, news of Last Flag Flying sparking into life has been a long time coming, given the project has been on Linklater’s radar for the better part of a decade. It seems the stars have now aligned, though, after the filmmaker carved out a space on his bustling slate to finally hoist this languishing drama off the ground.
Ordering Carell, Cranston and Fishburne to the high seas, Linklater had initially intended to reunite Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid and Otis Young – the trio that headlined the 1973 comedy-drama based on The Last Detail – but such blue-sky thinking fizzled out pretty quickly. It’ll still focus on the core trio of Billy ‘Badass’ Budusky, Richard “Mule” Mulhall and Larry Meadows for a journey that “sends them back retracing their journey from Norfolk, Virginia, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.”
Amazon Studios will pledge financial support to Last Flag Flying, and we understand that all parties involved are eyeing a production start in November. Beyond the world of naval drama, Steve Carell can currently be seen opposite Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart in Woody Allen’s Cafe Society. On the other hand, Cranston will soon be circling back to the ’90s for Lionsgate’s live-action Power Rangers reboot, while Fishburne is part of the crew jetting off into deep space in Morten Tyldum’s Passengers.