Richard Linklater will follow up his bro-ier Everybody Wants Some!! with something a little more serious: Last Flag Flying stars Steve Carell as Doc, a former Navy medic whose son is killed during the Iraq war. Not content with letting his son’s remains reside in Arlington National Cemetery, Doc recruits two of his ex-Marine buddies (Bryan Cranston and Laurence Fishburne) to help him drive the casket up the East Coast to be buried at his home in New Hampshire.
The film was adapted by Richard Linklater and Darryl Ponicsan from Ponicsan’s novel Last Flag Flying, a sequel to The Last Detail, which itself inspired the 1973 Hal Ashby film that earned Jack Nicholson an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Given the awards appeal of Last Flag Flying, Cranston, who takes over Nicholson’s role as the hard-drinking Billy “Badass” Buddusky, might just score one of his own.
Last Flag Flying will debut at the New York Film Festival on Sept. 28 before hitting theaters Nov. 3.
