Blue Moon: Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, & more set to star in new Richard Linklater movie

Deadline reports that Ethan Hawke is set to reunite with Richard Linklater once again for Blue Moon, a drama which dives into the final days of Lorenz Hart, one half of the songwriting team Rodgers & Hart.

In addition to Hawke, Blue Moon will also feature Margaret Qualley (The Substance), Bobby Cannavale (Ezra), and Andrew Scott (Ripley). Production will kick off in Dublin, Ireland this summer. Sony Pictures Classics has acquired the worldwide rights for the project, which has been scripted by Robert Kaplow. The film will be set “primarily in Sardi’s Restaurant on March 31, 1943, the opening night of Oklahoma!, which marked Rodgers’s first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II as Hart’s replacement.“

“Robert, Ethan 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,” Linklater said in a statement. A spokesperson for Sony Pictures Classics added: “Almost a year ago, Rick, Ethan and John reached out to us with Robert Kaplow’s amazing script Blue Moon. 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.” In addition to directing Blue Moon, Linklater will also produce alongside Mike Blizzard and John Sloss.

Blue Moon will mark the ninth collaboration between Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke. Starting with Before Sunrise, the pair worked together on The Newton Boys, Waking Life, Tape, Before Sunset, Fast Food Nation, Before Midnight, and Boyhood. Linklater’s most recent film was the critically-praised Hit Man, which stars Glen Powell as a strait-laced professor who discovers his hidden talent as a fake hitman. He meets his match in a client who steals his heart and ignites a powder keg of deception, delight, and mixed-up identities. The film is now streaming on Netflix and you can check out a review from our own Chris Bumbray right here.