Richard Linklater is getting ready to turn his attention from one Hit Man to another of an altogether different kind with Blue Moon, a new biopic profiling the dying days of Lorenz Hart, one half of legendary mid-century American songwriting duo Rodgers & Hart. And the Boyhood filmmaker has brought together a hell of a cast for this new project. As reported by Deadline, Linklater’s movie — which has landed worldwide distribution via Sony — is set to star Ethan Hawke in his ninth collaboration with his Before trilogy director, as well as Margaret Qualley (Kinds Of Kindness), Andrew Scott (Ripley), and Bobby Cannavale (Blonde)
Due to start shooting in Dublin, Ireland this summer, Blue Moon has been a long-term passion project for Linklater. “Robert [Kaplow], Ethan [Hawke], and I have been developing this story for over a decade and are excited and grateful that the time has come to bring this to life,” said the director in a statement yesterday. Penned by Robert Kaplow, whose novel Me & Orson Welles inspired Linklater’s 2008 film of the same name, Blue Moon will take place primarily in Sardi’s Restaurant on 31 March, 1943. It’s a date that holds significance as the opening night of Oklahoma!, the musical which marked Richard Rodgers’ first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II as Lorenz Hart’s replacement.
“Almost a year ago, Rick, Ethan, and John reached out to us with Robert Kaplow’s amazing script Blue Moon,” a Sony Pictures Classics spokesperson said following their acquisition of the project. “Helping them over the following months to bring it together has been incredibly exciting and now, on the verge of production, with this fantastic cast and crew in place and Rick at the helm, we are thrilled to finally announce it and bring the film to audiences everywhere in the world.”
We don’t know who Hawke, Qualley, Scott, and Cannavale will be playing in Blue Moon just yet, or when exactly the film is set to hit our screens, but we’ll bring you more updates on Linklater’s star-filled new feature just as soon as we get them. We are at least reasonably confident however that it’ll be here sooner than the filmmaker’s Merrily We Roll Along adaptation with Paul Mescal and Beanie Feldstein, which is currently in the early stages of a wildly ambitious 20 year shoot. Yes, you read that right, TWENTY YEARS! We’re knackered just thinking about it.