After his brother Joel Coen went out on his own to direct a movie, last year’s Oscar-nominated The Tragedy of Macbeth, Ethan Coen is also planning a solo trip.

Ethan Coen, half of the acclaimed sibling partnership known simply as the Coen brothers, has teamed up with Focus Features and Working Title for the feature project, which is currently untitled.

Coen will direct the film, which is eyeing a shoot this summer, and wrote the script with his wife, Tricia Cooke. The two are also producing with Robert Graf and Working Title principals Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner.

Focus and Working Title are keeping mum on the project, but sources indicate that the untitled feature is a lesbian road trip project that Coen and Cooke initially wrote in the mid-2000s.

The Russ Meyer-inspired action sex comedy was initially to have been directed by Allison Anders, who made the 1992 indie hit Gas Food Lodging. The story centers on a party girl who takes a trip from Philadelphia to Miami with her buttoned-up friend. Along the way they cruise the bars and encounter, among other obstacles, a severed head in a hatbox, a bitter ex-girlfriend, a mystery briefcase and an evil senator.

“The sensibility is exploitive but innocent,” Coen told the Los Angeles Times in January 2007, adding that he was going for the tone of early ’70s exploitation romps he saw as a teenager, only with more sincerity. Selma Blair, Holly Hunter, Christina Applegate and Chloe Sevigny were among those attached to star at various early points.

Coen was just producing at that time, but now, 15 years later, it looks like he’s got gas in the tank and is ready to take the wheel himself, with the script having evolved since then.

The Coen brothers have been making movies together — writing, directing and producing — since the 1980s. They shared Oscars for Fargo and No Country for Old Men, and the last movie they worked on together was 2018’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.

EXCLUSIVE: Ethan Coen looks to have found the leads for his untitled pic at Working Title and Focus Features. Sources tell Deadline that Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan are set to star in the film, which will marks Coen’s first time directing a film on his own after having spent his movie career co-directing and writing with his brother Joel.

As of now, plot and character details are being kept under wraps for the new pic, which Ethan Coen co-wrote with his wife Tricia Cooke. They are also producing with Robert Graf and Working Title’s Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner.

Coen had been meeting with talent for months, with the roles quickly becoming some of the more coveted parts in the biz for up-and-coming actresses. In recent weeks, a shortlist was made and chemistry readings were held; in the end, insiders say Qualley and Viswanathan’s screen tests could not be beat.

The film will shoot this fall.

Focus Features and Working Title will release Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s “Drive-Away Dolls.” The comedy caper will open in theaters on Sept. 22, 2023.

The film 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.

It features an impressive cast that includes Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Pedro Pascal, Colman Domingo, Bill Camp and Matt Damon.

Coen, the Oscar-winning director and screenwriter of “Fargo” and “No Country for Old Men,” is making the film without his brother and frequent collaborator Joel Coen. It’s not their first time working on solo projects. Joel Coen adapted “The Tragedy of Macbeth” in 2021 with Denzel Washington and the director’s wife, Frances McDormand, playing Shakespeare’s most murderous couple.

Cooke, who is married to Ethan Coen, has worked as an editor or associate editor on many of the Coen brothers’ films, including “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “The Man Who Wasn’t There.” Coen is directing “Drive-Away Dolls” from a script he co-wrote and produced with Cooke.

Focus Features will distribute “Drive-Away Dolls” in the U.S. with Universal Pictures International, which shares an owner with the indie label in Comcast, handling foreign distribution. The film’s producers include Robert Graf, as well as Working Title heads Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner.

Drive-Away Dolls is eyeing a move off its September 22 release date, largely because it’s dated against the awards-bait title Dumb Money, which will have the gas of TIFF behind it. New date for caper movie starring Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal is TBD; if you glance at the Comscore calendar, Focus has October 6 on hold for an untitled feature.