More than 20 years ago, Richard Linklater followed his arty indie hit Slacker with the nostalgia-soaked Dazed and Confused, doing for 1976 what American Graffiti did for 1962. Now, Linklater is back to do the same thing for a new era, and a new stage of life: Dazed and Confused’s long-gestating “spiritual sequel” will follow the same generation of (then high school, now college) freshman about four years after the paddlings and air raids of the original movie. (Plot twist: Those high school girls didn’t stay the same age.)
As far as I can tell, such immortal characters as Matthew McConaughey’s Wooderson aren’t coming back (though it’d be a lot cooler if he did), and instead Everybody Wants Some follows a new set of characters, played by mostly unknowns. (The only face you’re likely to recognize is the bearded visage of Wyatt Russell, who played Channing Tatum’s best bro in 22 Jump Street.) Casting newcomers should also give Linklater more of a budget for the soundtrack (about a sixth of Dazed’s budget was spent on the music), and the trailer already makes use of 1979’s “My Sharona” and the 1980 title track from Van Halen, matching the movie’s 1980 setting.
But Linklater won’t be drawing only from Dazed. The movie also seems somewhat autobiographical (like the main character, Linklater went to college in Texas on a baseball scholarship in the early ’80s). And Linklater has said that it’s also “a continuation of Boyhood,” because “it begins right where Boyhood ends, with a guy showing up at college and meeting his new roommates and a girl.” Whatever it’s a sequel to, I can’t wait to see it when it comes out next year.
Read more in Slate
