Richard Linklater’s next film sounds pretty strange, but the director has assembled a solid trio of stars to headline.
The Hollywood Reporter just broke the news that Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell, and Laurence Fishburne will be in Last Flag Flying, Richard Linklater’s sequel to… The Last Detail?
Well, as is the case with Linklater, whose last picture Everybody Wants Some!! was a sort of spiritual sequel to both Boyhood and Dazed and Confused, Last Flag Flying will “sort of” be a sequel to the 1973 Hal Ashby military comedy. It will be based on the 2005 Darryl Ponicsan novel, also a sequel to Ponicsan’s The Last Detail novel. Linklater has been circling this project since 2006, and now it seems his schedule has cleared up. Enter Cranston, Carell, and Fishburne.
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The Last Detail starred Jack Nicholson and Otis Young as two Naval officers who are tasked with brining a young offender (Randy Quaid, Oscar nominated) to prison. But they decide to show the kid a good time before sending him off to jail. Quaid was nominated, as was Nicholson and the adapted screenplay from Hal Ashby.
Last Flag Flying will, according to THR, take place in this Post-9/11 world:
[The film] reunites the reader with the trio, now living in a post-9/11 American life: the former Naval Petty Officers come to the aid of their former prisoner who needs their help to bring home the body of his son, the latter who was killed in Iraq. The request that sends them back retracing their journey from Norfolk, Virginia, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
It’s definitely a weird idea for a long-gap sequel, but Richard Linklater paired up with that cast is worth the price of admission. The film should start production this November.
