What's the status of the spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused?

RichardLinklater
Hoping to make it this fall, actually. A college comedy. I feel like mixing it up with a big ensemble.

"It's just sitting there," the easygoing Austin-based filmmaker said sounding surprisingly undefeated. "I even have it financed, I just have to get a distributor that would do it or would give me enough to make it." Note to any mini-majors, we're looking at you here.

"Unless it's a tentpole, sequel, remake, or over-the-top comedy, that's all the studios are even doing," the director noted of the safe and boring choices Hollywood is making these days. "They've kind of admitted they're not in the business of doing anything else. The slightest level of irony or intelligence and, boom, you're out of the league, you're done."

The project reportedly had Matthew McConaughey in loose talks to star. A number of people that Linklater had in mind for the juicy roles are even said to have already read for the project.

Richard Linklater is exiting Warner Bros.' The Incredible Mr. Limpet, multiple sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.

The director, whose 12-years-in-the-making film Boyhood is currently in theaters and has been garnering strong critical praise, had been attached to the remake of the 1964 family comedy since 2011.

Based on the novel by Theodore Pratt, Mr. Limpet centers on a man who is transformed into a fish. Sources say Warner Bros. has been talking to directors to replace Linklater after it began to look like his schedule wouldn't match up with the studio's timeline for making the film. Warner Bros. and reps for Linklater had no comment.

According to sources, Linklater wants to concentrate on That's What I'm Talking About, a 1980s, university-set project that is akin to his cult hit, Dazed & Confused, which was set in the 1970s and set in high school. The project, which is based on Linklater's life, follows freshmen as they navigate through the first year of college life, while trying to make the baseball team.

Talking About is another passion project for Linklater and the filmmaker would love to capitalize on Boyhood's heat to make this one a reality. Several sources say Linklater would like to shoot the project in the fall, which would have pushed work on Limpet into 2015.

It's also likely that Linklater could be very busy during awards season with Boyhood, although it's still too soon to tell. And he's attached to Larry's Kidney, an adaptation of Daniel Asa Rose's memoir to star Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis. He's repped by CAA, Cinetic Management, Anonymous Content and Sloss Law Office.

EXCLUSIVE: Fresh from his time lapse masterpiece Boyhood, Richard Linklater is casting for That’s What I’m Talking About, the baseball-themed film he’ll make next. I’m told he has offered the three leads to these actors: Glee’s Blake Jenner, Teen Wolf’s Tyler Hoechlin, and 22 Jump Street’s Wyatt Russell. They’ve each got an offer to play one of the lead baseball players.

The film is said to be very much in tone similar to Linklater’s stoner pic Dazed and Confused. It is set in 1980, and a college freshman moves into the baseball house at his college and experiences a fraternity like lifestyle with his hard partying teammates.

EXCLUSIVE: Richard Linklater has tapped Step Up All In star Ryan Guzman for That’s What I’m Talking About, the baseball movie he’s assembling following his acclaimed time lapse drama Boyhood. Guzman has landed a lead role in the 1980s-set film about a college freshman who moves into a fraternity-like baseball house with his hard-partying teammates. He’s got the background for the part: The athletic actor, who has starred in two Step Up dance pics, was a college pitcher before he turned to acting. As Deadline’s Mike Fleming first reported offers are out to thesps Blake Jenner (Glee), Tyler Hoechlin (Teen Wolf), and Wyatt Russell (22 Jump Street). Guzman next stars opposite Jennifer Lopez in Universal and Blumhouse’s January thriller The Boy Next Door and is playing Rio in the Jon M. Chu-directed Jem and the Holograms, also for Universal and Blumhouse. He’s repped by Luber Roklin, CAA, and Neil Meyer.

Richard Linklater talking about his spiritual sequel to DAZED AND CONFUSED:

Well, I think the word “spiritual” gets me off the hook. I just shot it and wrapped it recently, and it has nothing to do with DAZED AND CONFUSED other than it would be set four years later, when one of the younger characters went off to college. It’s a party film. It’s really about the beginning of school, not the end of the school year. I guess personally or autobiographically it’s kind of in that realm, but it’s also a continuation of BOYHOOD, believe it or not. I don’t know if one film can be a sequel to two different movies, but it begins right where BOYHOOD ends with a guy showing up at college and meeting his new roommates and a girl. It overlaps with the end of BOYHOOD.

After crafting two of the finest films of the current decade with Before Midnight and Boyhood, it’s safe to say anticipation is high for Richard Linklater‘s next film, a spiritual sequel to his 1993 hit Dazed and Confused. Once going by That’s What I’m Talking About, the comedy now has a new title, along with the initial details on what to expect from the soundtrack.

Thanks to the near-finished film now conducting test screenings, we’ve confirmed it’s currently going by Everybody Wants Some, named after the Van Halen song. Also including more music from the era by Talking Heads, Blondie, Pat Benatar, and Devo, no specific tracks are named, but we do get a synopsis, which can be read below:

It’s the last weekend of freedom before college starts and Everybody Wants Some.

A “spiritual sequel to Dazed and Confused and set in the world of 1980 college life, Everybody Wants Some is a comedy that follows a group of friends as they navigate their way through the freedoms and responsibilities of unsupervised adulthood. Get ready for the best weekend ever.

These details certainly go in line with that Linklater said earlier this year in his extensive chat with Marc Maron: “You show up at college and you’re listening to Van Halen, but you go to discos to chase women, but then you end up at a punk club or a country bar because Urban Cowboy was big at that time. All that stuff was on the table, so it’s an interesting cultural moment because they go to an art party and they’re listening to the Talking Heads, so it’s a cultural moment where I’m like, ‘Who am I?’ Am I punk? Am I new wave? Am I heavy metal?”

Boyhood director Richard Linklater's next film, a currently untitled baseball movie, will hit theaters on April 15, 2016.

The Annapurna film, which Paramount will release in North America, stars Tyler Hoechlin, Blake Jenner, Wyatt Russell and Zoey Deutch. It was previously called That’s What I’m Talking About.

The movie centers on freshmen who work their way through the first year of college life as they try to make the baseball team.