Drive-Away Dolls, an upcoming movie, has set a release date for September 22 of this year. The film will hail from Ethan Coen, who will be handling directing duties solo, without his brother and frequent collaborator Joel Coen. The script for Drive-Away Dolls was written by Ethan Coen and his wife, film editor Tricia Cooke. Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan will star in the film, joined by Beanie Feldstein, Pedro Pascal, Colman Domingo, Bill Camp, and Matt Damon.
The plot synopsis for the film states that Drive-Away Dolls is a “comedy caper follows Jamie, an uninhibited free spirit bemoaning yet another breakup with a girlfriend, and her demure friend Marian who desperately needs to loosen up. In search of a fresh start, the two embark on an impromptu road trip to Tallahassee, but things quickly go awry when they cross paths with a group of inept criminals along the way.”
Producers on the film consist of Coen, Cooke, Robert Graf, Tim Bevan, and Eric Fellner. Focus Features and Working Title will be the studios in charge of releasing the movie in theatres. Specifically, Focus Features will distribute Drive-Away Dolls in the United States, while Universal Pictures International will be handling the, well, international distribution. It's all right there in the name of the company.
The Coen Brothers Together and Separate
The Coen brothers have certainly given us plenty of inept criminals over the years. The ultimate example of which might be Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) from Fargo, who hires two criminals he doesn’t know, Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) and Gaer Grimsrud (Peter Stormare), to kidnap his wife Jean (Kristin Rudrüd) as part of a poorly thought out plan to extort money from his father-in-law.
Despite what their early film credits might say, the Coen brothers always directed their movies together up until about two years ago. Back in 2021, Joel Coen came out with The Tragedy of Macbeth, starring Denzel Washing and Frances McDormand. That was followed by Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind, a documentary exclusively directed by Ethan Coen. Drive-Away Dolls will be his first fictional movie without his brother, though.
Speaking with the Associated Press back in 2022, Ethan Coen said that the split from working from his brother wasn’t due to something “dramatic” happening. Instead, it was a product of the filmmaking feeling more like a job after 30 years, which begged the question, “Why am I doing this?” He also offered hope to fans hoping for another movie that was directed by the two of them.
“Going our own separate ways sounds like it suggests it might be final. But none of this stuff happened definitively. None of the decisions are definitive. We might make another movie. I don’t know what my next movie is going to be after this. The pandemic happened. I turned into a big baby and got bored and quit, and then the pandemic happened. Then other stuff happens and who knows?”