The second installment of Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke‘s lesbian genre trilogy, “Honey Don’t!,” hits theaters this weekend. After the odd-couple road trip caper of last year’s “Drive-Away Dolls,” this one, also starring Margaret Qualley, is a neo-noir detective movie, albeit one tinged with Coen and Cooke’s kinky screwball touches. As for the trilogy capper? The duo hinted at what it’ll be on Deadline’s “Crew Call” podcast. But first, some lore about “Drive-Away Dolls,” which, once upon a time, had a very different title.
Coen and Cooke first started the script for the comedy over two decades ago, titling it “Drive-Away Dykes.” Obviously, Hollywood balked at that name. Yeah, more than 25 years ago, I think we started writing,” confirmed Cooke. “A lot of it had to do with the fact that we just enjoy each other’s company, and we enjoy kind of making things up together. And so when we weren’t doing that in the cutting room anymore, I was like, okay, well, why don’t we try writing these things? Why don’t we try writing some genre movies there? You know, there aren’t enough lesbian genres, maybe.”
That idea led to “Drive-Away Dolls,” which the pair tried to make shortly after writing it to no avail. “”Drive-Away Dykes” was the first thing we wrote together,” Cooke continued. “And we did try to get a made with a friend of ours, Allison Anders, directing it. But again, this is like 20, over 20, years ago. And it didn’t happen. We couldn’t get it made.” Flash-forward two-plus decades later, and Focus Features decided to produce the pic after Coen and Cooke made the 2022 doc “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble In Mind.”
That opened the door for Coen and Cooke to make “Honey Don’t!,” in theaters this weekend after it had its world premiere out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May. But what about the final film in their planned lesbian genre trilogy? Will the pair get to make it? “Well, hopefully,” said Coen. “It’s [about] a ten-year reunion of a woman’s crew team. Wilderness. They, you know, row down the river, which is life. You get it?” “Yea, meets horror movie,” Cooke chimed in. As for whether Qualley will star in it, Coen said, “Margaret’s going to be too old by the time we get to it, [but] we’ll find a part for [her.]”
Qualley stars in “Honey Don’t!” as a female PI in Bakersfield, California, who investigates a young woman’s death that may have ties to a local religious cult. It’s the actress’s second time starring in a Coen and Cooke vehicle, so it only makes sense for her to star in their women’s crew horror movie, right? We’ll see what happens, but it could be a while before the pic gets made, as the Coens may reunite for their first pic together since 2018 after Joel wraps work on “Jack Of Spades,” in production now.
