The Coen brothers haven’t directed a film together since The Ballad of Buster Scruggs in 2018, but their long-awaited reunion might not be far off.
The Coen Brothers Plan on Reuniting
After Buster Scuggs, the Coen brothers went their separate ways, with Joel writing and directing The Tragedy of Macbeth and the upcoming Jack of Spades, and Ethan writing and directing Drive-Away Dolls and Honey Don’t!. But the pair told AFP that they are planning on working on another movie together, with Joel joking that it should happen soon because of their age.
“We’re getting old,” Joel said. “It better be the near future. We have a number of different things in what we call the library, things that we’ve written before. And then other things that we’ve thought about writing scripts about and never gotten around. So we don’t know yet.“
Although there have been rumblings that the pair were working on a horror movie, it’s clear they’re not keen on tackling anything fantasy-related. “It’s definitely some weird cultural thing where mainstream movies are now mostly fantasy: fantasy, science fiction, horror, comic books, all different kinds of fantasy,” said Ethan. “It’s a sad thing for us because we’ve never been drawn to those kinds of things.“
Joel also ruled out a TV series. “You have to sort of understand that structure in order to do it successfully,” he said. “And it’s just not what we do. It’s not the way our brains think about stories.“
Why Did They Split in the First Place?
Four decades worth of collaboration has given us Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, and so much more, but there was never any falling out between the brothers. Instead, Ethan explained last year that it was pure exhaustion.
“After the last movie we made together, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, I was like, ‘I can’t do another one. This is too hard. I’m out.’ And Joel went on to do Macbeth,” he said. “And then COVID happened, and we were locked down — me and Tricia — and we had the opportunity to do this documentary with all archival footage – and that was kind of great. So I kind of got interested again, and we have these scripts, but Joel was working on his thing, so we kind of got out of sync. Now, there was never a decision by the two of us to do movies separately.“
A Coen brothers reunion is something to look forward to, and I can only hope it happens soon.
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