Richard Linklater To Make Very Late Sequel To THE LAST DETAIL

In what might be the weirdest movie news of the day, The Hollywood Reporter claims that Richard Linklater’s next film will be a sequel to the 1970s Hal Ashby film The Last Detail. Kind of.

It goes like this. The Last Detail, which starred Jack Nicholson and Randy Quaid, was based on a book by Darryl Ponsican. In 2005 Ponsican published a sequel, Last Flag Flying. Linklater’s adapting that. So you don’t really have to think of it as a sequel if you don’t want. But you will.

The film might even have a cast already in the form of Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell, and Laurence Fishburne, all of whom are currently in talks. Here is a plot synopsis of the book from Amazon (where you can buy it for almost $500):

Darryl Ponicsan never imagined that his first novel, "The Last Detail", called by one critic "...the first underground triumph of the 70s..." would be a continuing story. With the invasion of Iraq, however, the same elements that inspired the original - injustice, a senseless war, men of honor and duty caught in untenable positions - compelled him to revisit Billy Bad-Ass, Mule, and the hapless Meadows, and to see how his characters were faring in post-9/11 American life. The result is "Last Flag Flying", a story as tough and tender. sad and funny. as "The Last Detail". The boy Billy and Mule escorted to prison has come back into their lives, now a grieving man of 52, with a gut-wrenching request they cannot deny. What follows is a retracing of their steps from 34 years before, a journey from Norfolk, Virginia, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on a mission as heart-breaking - and as exhilarating - as the first.

This is an interesting project indeed. Let us know how mad it makes you in the comments!