Well, it was a good 37-year run, but the Coen Brothers partnership has—for the moment, at least—diverged, sending the pair down radically different paths. Joel just gave us The Tragedy of MacBeth, a sober, black and white take on the iconic Shakespeare play. And now it seems Ethan will eschew the Bard of Avon to instead find inspiration in the late, great King of the Nudies.
Ethan Coen’s first solo directing effort will reportedly be a sexploitation romp in the top-heavy mold of Roger Corman. The script, once titled Drive-Away Dykes and described as a “lesbian road-trip action sex comedy,” was written by Coen and wife Tricia Cooke back in the mid-2000s. It sees “a skirt-chasing party girl” and “her buttoned-down friend” on a Philly-to-Miami road trip that involves “a severed head in a hatbox, a mystery briefcase full of plaster phalluses, a melange of angry pursuers, an evil senator, a bitter ex-girlfriend, and loads of hot, boyless sex.”
Gas Food Lodging director Allison Anders was originally attached to head up the film, but now it’s time for Ethan to show Joel that two can play this project-with-just-your-wife game. And he’s not above bringing lighthearted lesbian sex to a period sword fight.
