Last summer, news broke that the Coen Brothers were reuniting after a five-year hiatus. Granted, the “news” there was Ethan Coen‘s throwaway comment to Empire while discussing his upcoming “Driveaway Dolls” that the brothers planned to work on an upcoming feature together. And now here’s a new, similar throwaway comment to Empire that puts those plans into focus. Ethan told the outlet that he and Joel are “working on writing something” but didn’t disclose what it was. Not a lot of info, but still good news for fans of the duo, especially those who want them to return to feature films after their anthology “The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs.”
READ MORE: Ethan Coen Says He’s Reuniting With His Brother Joel For An Upcoming Project Together
But writing together doesn’t necessarily mean helming a film together. And the Coens have written plenty of scripts that never became films. They’ve also written scripts for others to direct, like Geroge Clooney‘s “Suburbicon” from 2017. So this news doesn’t guarantee the Coens will direct a new pic together soon. But it does confirm that their going separate ways creatively for a time is over. Whether that was a breakup or a way to rekindle their respective energies remains debatable; as usual, the Coens remain coy.
Since the separation, Joel directed “The Tragedy Of Macbeth” for Apple while Ethan has collaborated with his wife Tricia Cooke on two films: 2022’s “Jerry Lewis: Trouble In Mind” and “Drive-Away Dolls,” which hits theaters next month. “Drive-Away Dolls” was originally supposed to come out early last Fall, but the guild strikes derailed those plans for Focus Features and Universal. That film stars Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan as two lesbians whose road trip to Florida goes awry when the fall in with some inept crooks. Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, Bill Camp, Joey Slotnick, and Matt Damon also star. “Drive-Away Dolls” hits theaters on February 23.
Meanwhile, the Coens haven’t made a film together since 2016’s Golden-Age Hollywood tribute “Hail, Caesar!” That movie’s script didn’t receive any nods for its script, but the Coens have received plenty of them for other films of theirs. “Fargo” won Best Original Screenplay at the 1997 Oscars, while “No Country For Old Men” won Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2008 ceremony (it also won Best Picture, Best Direction, and Best Supporting Actor). So the Coens do a stellar job whether it’s an original script or an adapted one, as their fans know well.
But just because the Coens are writing something together doesn’t mean Ethan and Cooke won’t stop working together either. “I’ll go on the record and say that I dragged Ethan down into the lowbrow,” Cooke told Empire about “Drive-Away Dolls.” “It was definitely me saying, ‘How low can we go?’” But Cooke and Ethan told the outlet that their next collaboration will be more serious, albeit with “funny bits”: a lesbian detective story.
Will that one come before or after the Coens’ latest script? Stay tuned for that. But it’s nice to hear that the Coen Brothers are finally working together again.
Btw, there were unsubstantiated reports earlier in 2023 that the Coens would be making Ross MacDonald’s “The Zebra Striped Hearse” into a film. Joel Coen denied the report not long after at a film event in Berkley but said he and Ethan had written a screenplay for it a long time ago but weren’t going to be involved in any way, originally or now.
“[It’s] something we wrote for someone else a few years ago, so maybe it’s going into production,” said Coen. “It was an original script, sort of, because someone had asked us to do an adaptation of these Ross Macdonald novels. I don’t know who’s making it.” So, cross that one off your list as a possibility.
