‘Drive-Away Dolls’: Ethan Coen’s Solo Directorial Debut Adds Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal and More!!

Ethan Coen‘s long-awaited solo directorial debut has a title and a release date. Drive-Away Dolls will hit theaters on September 22, 2023. Dirive-Away Dolls has been acquired by Focus Features, who will release it this fall in the US, with Universal handling international distribution.

Coen, in his first directorial feature without brother and longtime collaborator Joel Coen, will tell the story of the free-spirited Jamie, who deals with her latest breakup by going on an impromptu road trip to Tallahassee with her straight-laced friend Marian. Along the way, they encounter a group of inept criminals (a Coen trademark) who greatly complicate their journey. Drive-Away Dolls boasts a cast loaded with up-and-coming actors and established names, including Margaret Qualley (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Geraldine Viswanathan (Blockers), Beanie Feldstein (Booksmart), Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Colman Domingo (Euphoria), Bill Camp (Joker), and Matt Damon (Air).

Born and raised in Minnesota, Joel and Ethan Coen broke into filmmaking with the razor-sharp noir thriller Blood Simple in 1984. Combining an acerbic wit with an off-kilter sensibility and a reverence for classic Hollywood, the two emerged as some of the most celebrated filmmakers of the latter decades of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st, moving from genre to genre with ease – from absurdist comedy (The Big Lebowski) to Westerns (True Grit) to cold-blooded suspense (No Country for Old Men). Other standouts in their filmography include Barton Fink, Miller’s Crossing, Fargo, The Man Who Wasn’t There, O Brother Where Art Thou?, and A Serious Man. The two won Best Original Screenplay Oscars for Fargo, and Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay for No Country for Old Men. The brothers’ last joint project was the 2018 Western anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Since then, Joel embarked on a solo project with the acclaimed The Tragedy of Macbeth, starring Denzel Washington, Brendan Gleeson, and his wife and frequent collaborator Frances McDormand.

Who Is Behind Drive-Away Dolls?

Drive-Away Dolls‘ script was written by Coen and his wife, editor Tricia Cooke, who worked on several of the Coen Brothers’ previous movies, as well as The Ex and The Notorious Bettie Page. Coen, Cooke, Robert Graf, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner will produce. The film will be produced by Working Title Pictures, who have produced a number of other Coen films, including Hail, Caesar! and Burn After Reading.