After 16 years in the weeds—tons of projects in development, none of them panning out, projects that could have included Leonardo DiCaprio, Christian Bale, Daniel Craig, and more—filmmaker Todd Field returned last year with the critically acclaimed “TÁR” starring Cate Blanchett (#1 on our list of the Best Films of 2022). It’s a bold, audacious drama, and it will likely be nominated for several Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, and more.
READ MORE: The Lost & Unmade Projects Of Filmmaker Todd Field
We digress. What’s next for Todd Field? Well, in a recent episode of Happy Sad Confused, Field admitted that of all the projects he developed over his 16 years away from filmmaking, there’s probably not one that he would return to, suggesting they all had their moment and would feel old and outdated now (we made an entire feature that lists about 20+ projects that Field was once attached to).
So, onto the feature; what else is on the docket? Nothing official, Field was supposed to direct episodes of “Devil In The White City” starring Keanu Reeves for Hulu, but once Reeves suddenly left that series late last year, the director soon followed suit. Field has said many times over the years that he’s stayed busy filmmaking in the world of commercials (saying he’s made ads with $12 million budgets that have covered every genre), which he could easily return to. Still, there is a little business about a possible project with Adam Sandler.
Sandler, twice now in about the span of two months, has named dropped Field as a filmmaker he is talking to about making a movie together with. And on a recent and separate episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Field admitted the project is real and that he and Sandler are talking.
The only problem is Field is staying pretty mum about it all. “It wouldn’t be a Sandler-like comedy, ‘Billy Madison 2,’ right?” the host asked? Field laughed and said, “I don’t know; I mean, maybe it could be like that.” he chuckled.
But Field mostly deflected. However, he revealed that their friendship goes back decades before Sandler was on “Saturday Night Live” and before Field became a director. Back in the ’80s and ’90s, they were likeminded struggling actors, and both of them even once auditioned for an unmade Milos Forman movie, Field revealed.
“The first film of Adam’s I ever saw was Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Punch Drunk Love,’” Field admitted. “It floored me. It really is one of the great screen performances—for me— of all time, and obviously, the stuff he has done with the Safdies is amazing, and as you mentioned, the stuff he did with James L. Brooks and Noah Baumbach. He has an incredible range; there’s no one like him. I hope we end up working together; I really do.”
Asked for more details, Field bluntly said, “We’ve been talking about some things; it’s too early [to say].” Fingers crossed, this one comes together, and we get details eventually. In the meantime, definitely check out “TÁR” if you haven’t, it’s fantastic.
Listen to the HSC podcast below too.