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Beloved director Richard Linklateris about to take the stage in just over two months with his comedic new film Blue Moon, a historical music biopic that puts an emphasis on the musical. Specifically, Rodgers and Hammerstein's legendary musical, Oklahoma!. However, this is not the story of either half of the theater writing dream team, but of Richard Rodgers's embittered former partner, Lorenz Hart, a lyricist who is firmly in the "for worse" part of “for better or for worse," and now has to bravely face the future amid his unraveling. Excitingly, the film also reunites Linklater with one of his favorite collaborators in the lead role — Ethan Hawke. As part of Collider's Exclusive Preview event for fall movies, we're excited to share an exclusive new image that sees Hawke transformed as Hart with a cigar in hand and looking sharp next to a dazzling Margaret Qualley.

Blue Moon...

El título supone la novena colaboración entre director y actor. © Sony Pictures

Sony Pictures Classics ha desvelado el primer tráiler de la película Blue Moon, del aclamado cineasta Richard Linklater (Hit Man).

Firmada por Robert Kaplow, autor de la novela Me and Orson Welles, Blue Moon se adentra en los últimos días de Lorenz Hart, célebre mitad del dúo Rodgers & Hart. La historia transcurre principalmente en el emblemático restaurante Sardi’s, durante la noche del 31 de marzo de 1943, fecha en la que se estrenó ¡Oklahoma!, musical que marcó el comienzo de la alianza entre Rodgers y Oscar Hammerstein II tras la salida de Hart.

La película reúne a un reparto de lujo, con Ethan Hawke al frente, acompañado de Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale y Andrew Scott.

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Toronto International Film Festival announced the lineup for its Centerpiece program on Tuesday, spotlighting 55 total films from nearly 50 countries. “Blue Moon” from director Richard Linklater, a collaboration between the U.S. and Ireland, will have its North American premiere in the largely international section of the festival.

Of the 55 films screening in the Centerpiece program, 51 represent countries outside of the U.S. Some are collaborations with the U.S., while most are entirely international productions. Likewise, only six films are sole productions of Canada, with one co-production between Canada and Hungary.

18 of the films present in the section will have their world premieres at TIFF. These include “Good Boy,” starring Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough; Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner “Carolina Caroline,” from director Adam Carter Rehmeier, who previously made “Dinner in America” and “Snack Shack”; and “Wasteman,” the debut feature from Cal McMau starring David Jonsson from “Alien: Romulus” and “Industry.

In the official trailer for Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon, Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) is killing the vibe. The famed lyricist is settled at the bar in the Broadway staple restaurant Sardi’s, following his sorrows to the bottom of a bottle as he watches his former collaborator Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) celebrate.

Rodgers and Hart were once a great duo, creating American songbook classics “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” “My Funny Valentine,” “Falling in Love With Love,” and more together in the early years of their partnership. But this was...

Sony Pictures Classics has debuted the first trailer for Blue Moon, its songwriter drama marking the ninth collaboration between filmmaker Richard Linklater and actor Ethan Hawke, which is slated to hit theaters in Los Angeles and New York on October 17, before expanding nationwide on October 24.

Written by Robert Kaplow, author of the novel Me and Orson Welles — which inspired the Linklater film of the same name — Blue Moon profiles the final days of Lorenz Hart (Hawke), part of the hit songwriting team Rodgers & Hart. The film is set primarily in Sardi’s Restaurant on March 31, 1943, the opening night of Oklahoma!, which marked Rodgers’ first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II as Hart’s replacement.

Also starring Margaret Qualley (The Substance), Bobby Cannavale (Ezra) and Andrew Scott (Ripley), the film premiered at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, where Scott won the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance, for his turn as Rodgers.

The first official trailer has arrived for Blue Moon, the new biographical portrait of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart. The movie, which stars Ethan Hawke as the renowned lyricist, will be released in theaters on October 17, 2025 in Los Angeles and New York, before expanding nationwide on October 24, 2025. The movie is directed by Richard Linklater from a script by Robert Kaplow. Watch the trailer and check out the poster below. The movie profiles the final days of Lorenz Hart, part of the hit songwriting team Rodgers & Hart, and is set primarily in Sardi’s Restaurant on March 31, 1943, the opening night of Oklahoma!, Rodgers’ first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II as Hart’s replacement. In the trailer, viewers can see the weight of Rodgers'...

Blue Moon will mark the ninth collaboration between Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke. Starting with Before Sunrise, the pair worked together on The Newton Boys, Waking Life, Tape, Before Sunset, Fast Food Nation, Before Midnight, and Boyhood. Sony Pictures Classics has now unveiled the trailer for Blue Moon. In addition to Hawke, the film will also feature Margaret Qualley (The Substance), Bobby Cannavale (Ezra), and Andrew Scott (Ripley). Sony Pictures Classics had acquired the worldwide rights for the project, which has been scripted by Robert Kaplow.

The official synopsis reads,

“…You know how in marriage they say “for better or for worse”? I think, in terms of my life, I have entered the “for worse” part, and it happened so quietly I didn’t even recognize it.

Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon tells the story of legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart bravely facing the future as his professional and private life...

Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke are up there with Martin Scorsese and De Niro, even Alfred Hitchcock and James Stewart, as one of cinema’s iconic perennial pairings. From the “Before” films and “Waking Life” to “Boyhood” (which earned Hawke an Oscar nomination) and even the underseen motel-room-only Dv thriller “Tape,” they’re operating on an alchemy rare for onscreen director-actor collaborators.

Their latest project together is “Blue Moon,” which may distract at first for the bald cap Hawke wears to play desperate, boozing songwriter Lorenz Hart. But underneath that feat of movie makeup magic is one of Hawke’s most wistful, poignant performances, here as the great American lyricist who was one half of Rodgers and Hart before a creative split.

“Blue Moon” is set over the course of one night, in the iconic New York bar Sardi’s, at the after-party for the 1943 premiere of Richard Rodgers and...

After teaming up with Glen Powell and Adria Arjona last year for Hit Man, the next film from director Richard Linklater just got a thrilling new look. Sony Pictures has released the first official trailer for Blue Moon, the upcoming historical biopic starring Ethan Hawke and Margaret Qualley. The film tells the story of lyricist Lorenz Hart, who pushes headstrong into the future despite the unraveling of his personal and professional life. In addition to Hawke and Qualley, Blue Moon also stars Bobby Cannavale and Andrew Scott, and the film will open in LA and NY on October 17 before premiering nationwide the following week on August 24. Hawke and Linklater previously worked together on Before Sunrise, the 1995 romantic comedy that’s not currently streaming anywhere.

Robert Kaplow wrote the script for Blue Moon. The stars of the film have been extremely busy of late, especially Margaret Qualley, who can briefly be...

So much hay was made of Richard Linklater’s Cannes-premiering Nouvelle Vague that you’re liable to forget, just three months prior, his debuting Blue Moon at the Berlinale. Sony Pictures Classics will begin its theatrical release (already putting it one step above the Godard biopic’s Netflix deal) October 17, ahead of which is a trailer featuring Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, and Silver Bear winner Andrew Scott.

As David Katz said in his review, “Blue Moon, which world-premiered at the Berlinale, is another beautifully personal work from Linklater, full of authorial idiosyncrasies and tics, but distinguishing the film from his corpus is it being the kind you can only make at a mature career stage. It’s not so much that Linklater has nothing to prove––screenplays like Robert Kaplow’s and its rarified, remote milieu of mid-wwii New York theaterland can typically send financiers balking. With a ‘legacy’ career,...

Sony Pictures Classics has scheduled Blue Moon, Richard Linklater’s latest film, for release on October 17 in New York and Los Angeles, with a broader rollout planned for October 24. The biographical drama centers on lyricist Lorenz Hart, one half of the iconic Rodgers and Hart songwriting duo, during a pivotal evening in 1943.

Set almost entirely at Sardi’s Restaurant, the film unfolds on the night Oklahoma! premiered on Broadway—Rodgers’ first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II after parting ways with Hart. Ethan Hawke plays Hart, who reflects on his legacy and confronts the emotional toll of professional displacement. The cast includes Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, and Andrew Scott.

The story takes place over a single night, capturing the personal and artistic reckoning of a man witnessing the reshaping of American musical theater without his involvement. Hawke and Linklater, long-time collaborators, team up for the ninth time on this project. Their...

Sony Pictures Classics has announced that Blue Moon, the upcoming biographical portrait of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart, will be released in theaters on October 17, 2025 in Los Angeles and New York, before expanding nationwide on October 24, 2025. The movie is directed by Richard Linklater from a script by Robert Kaplow. Blue Moon, which stars Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke in his 9th collaboration with Linklater, alongside Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale and Andrew Scott, had its world premiere at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival, where it received rave reviews, as well as the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance for Andrew Scott. Find out what critics thought of the film here. The movie profiles the final days of <a...

Sony Pictures Classics has set Richard Linklater’s “Blue Moon” for a limited release on Oct. 17 with a nationwide rollout on Oct. 24.

The film, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, stars Linklater’s longtime collaborator Ethan Hawke in the actor-director duo’s ninth film together. It follows the final days of Lorenz Hart, the first collaborator with famed songwriter Richard Rodgers before his more famous partnership with Oscar Hammerstein. The film is set in 1943 on the opening night of “Oklahoma!,” the first Rodgers & Hammerstein musical.

The film also stars Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale and Andrew Scott, the latter of whom won the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance at Berlin. Robert Kaplow wrote the screenplay.

Linklater produced the film alongside Mike Blizzard and John Sloss. The film is a Detour/Renovo production in association with Wild Atlantic Pictures, Under the Influence and Cinetic Media. Additional EPs include Wild Atlantic’s Macdara Kelleher,...

After releasing two films last year with Hit Man and the rather-overlooked God Save Texas: Hometown Prison, the ever-prolific Richard Linklater returns in 2025 with two more features. Earlier this year he premiered Blue Moon at Berlinale. Now Sony Pictures Classics, in the official CinemaCon program guide, has confirmed a fall release window for the drama.

Described as “a funny Valentine to old Broadway,” here’s the synopsis: “On the evening of March 31, 1943, legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart confronts his shattered self-confidence in Sardi’s bar as his former collaborator Richard Rodgers celebrates the opening night of his ground-breaking hit musical Oklahoma!“

Meanwhile, Linklater looks to have locked his next feature Nouvelle Vague, his tribute to the French New Wave and chronicle of the making of Breathless, directed in the style of Jean-Luc Godard’s landmark debut. While it’s still seeking U.S. distribution, French distributor Arp Sélection has confirmed an...

There was Dewey Finn, Ned Schneebly, Willoughby, Mason Evans Sr.––now there’s Lorenz (or Larry) Hart. Richard Linklater likes a certain type of guy, and maybe these features come across too infrequently in his female characters: charismatic, voluble, verbose, enthusiastic as a puppy, and if prone to morose stretches, never in a way that destabilizes an essential upbeat humanism.

Blue Moon, which world-premiered at the Berlinale, is another beautifully personal work from Linklater, full of authorial idiosyncrasies and tics, but distinguishing the film from his corpus is it being the kind you can only make at a mature career stage. It’s not so much that Linklater has nothing to prove––screenplays like Robert Kaplow’s and its rarified, remote milieu of mid-wwii New York theaterland can typically send financiers balking. With a “legacy” career, little favors and gives come your way; for Linklater, maybe his next will be a legitimate awards contender,...

Ethan Hawke is getting raves and (very, very) early awards buzz for his performance in Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon, which had its world premiere in Berlin Tuesday night.

Hawke is unrecognizable as famed American musical-theater lyricist Lorenz, “Larry” Hart, the balding, diminutive creative partner to composer Richard Rodgers. The real-time feature follows Hart as he struggles with alcoholism and depression on the opening night of Oklahoma!, Rodgers’ Broadway triumph and his first musical with new lyricist Oscar Hammerstein. Andrew Scott is Rodgers, Margaret Qualley is Elizabeth Weiland, Hart’s student “protégée.” Bobby Cannavale plays Hart’s bartender buddy, Eddie.

But the film belongs to Hawke, who appears in every frame and gives one of his long career’s standout performances. His Hart alternates between charming raconteur and seedy has-been as he tries to reconcile with Rogers for a possible comeback. Even more unlikely is his attempt to woo Elizabeth,...

Those with even the most cursory knowledge of musical theater would be familiar with the work of Rodgers and Hammerstein; those with similar familiarity with Rodgers and Hart, on the other hand, would be fewer and further in between. And from that simple statement of fact builds Richard Linklater’s “Blue Moon,” a bittersweet biopic of sorts that premiered on Tuesday at the Berlin Film Festival. Pitched halfway between “Midnight in Paris” and “Inside Llewyn Davis,” Linklater’s proudly stagey old-showbiz hangout follows a man as he watches the world pass him by in real-time.

That man is lyricist Lorenz Hart — a titan of the American songbook whose influence can still be measured in show tunes and jazz standards, but whose name and reputation have receded further than his hairline in the eight decades since his death. And though “Blue Moon” opens with the drinking binge that directly resulted in Hart’s November 1943 passing,...

The long and rewarding collaboration between Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater stretches back 30 years to Before Sunrise, continuing with the other two parts of that superlative romantic trilogy, filmed at nine-year intervals, Before Sunset and Before Midnight. While that project spanned 27 years, the actor and the director also spent more than a decade shooting Boyhood for a few days at a time, once or twice a year. Their intimate knowledge of artistic symbiosis adds a poignant underlay to Hawke and Linklater’s reunion on Blue Moon, a transfixing character study that X-rays the shaky skeleton of a creative partnership of comparable duration.

Written with wry humor and perspicacity by Robert Kaplow, whose novel was the basis of Linklater’s 2008 feature, Me and Orson Welles, the new film again is set in the world of Broadway and expands on theater lore in illuminating personal ways.

It unfolds in real time on...

The Unbearable Lightness of Seeing: Linklater Pays Homage to a Broken Hart

Lorenz Hart was a lonely hunter. If you believe you haven’t heard of him, you’ve definitely heard lyrics he wrote for some iconic songs from when he was part of the Broadway songwriting team, Rodgers and Hart. Director Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon is so named for what stands as his most successful hit, even if the film asserts he had a contentious relationship with its popularity. Reuniting with his Me and Orson Welles (2008) scribe Robert Kaplow, Linklater recreates one consequential evening in the last year of Hart’s life—a night which cements his descent into being a has-been.…...

When does an artist die? Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon opens with a direct answer as it pertains to its subject, famed American lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke), as he stumbles drunkenly to the ground of a Hell’s Kitchen alleyway in November 1943. Then a radio announcer’s voiceover narration dutifully provides the key bullet points of Hart’s accomplishments as if to clear the decks before audiences get the actual answer.

Blue Moon captures the death of an artist as only Linklater could by fixating on a moment perpendicular to Hart’s passing. Seven months before his collapse at just 48 years old, a single night at the famed Broadway haunt Sardi’s led to the devastating realization that both the culture and his collaborators had left him behind. Surrounded by portraits of the industry’s brightest talents, the space becomes like a mausoleum to Hart as he frets about...

Witticist-lyricist Lorenz Hart would cringe at the pun, but “Blue Moon” is nothing if not a funny valentine to the tortured songwriter who died in 1943 at age 48, having drunk too much on opening night of his final collaboration with composer Richard Rodgers. Set six months earlier, Richard Linklater’s splendid portrait stars a courageous but egregiously miscast Ethan Hawke, chewing the scenery from a one-foot trench in the floor. Like a backstage pass for Broadway buffs, it’s one hell of a show for those in the know and a sparkling introduction for the uninitiated.

This was not a happy period in Hart’s life, and though he comes off charming and clever — the showman-cum-show queen — what makes him such a deserving subject are the layers of insecurity and self-loathing for which his patter is so clearly overcompensating. “He was the saddest man I ever knew,” the singer Mabel Merced once said,...

In Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise,” Julie Delpy’s Céline suggests that “If there’s any kind of magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something.” Thirty years after Céline and Ethan Hawke’s Jesse fell in love, Linklater reunites with Hawke for “Blue Moon,” the long-time collaborators’ latest attempt to find that magic. The film in question seeks to understand Lorenz Hart, the great American lyricist who — alongside composer Richard Rodgers — is responsible for countless classics to be found in the great American songbook. But from the outset, Linklater understands the inherent difficulty that comes with capturing such a singular voice all these decades later.

“Blue Moon” opens with two wildly contrasting quotes. One is from Oscar Hammerstein II, who claimed that Hart was “alert and dynamic and fun to be around.” The other is from cabaret legend Mabel Mercer, who describes...

Few filmmakers have as varied a CV as Richard Linklater’s. From the box office hit School of Rock to his experiments with rotoscope, he is indefatigably curious and surprisingly consistent — with style and substance. This time around, he is testing himself with a chamber piece: a drama set almost entirely in one room and focused on a single character. The setting is the upscale New York bar Sardi’s on the night in 1943 when Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! is having its triumphant premiere; the character is American lyricist Lorenz Hart.

Before Rodgers and Hammerstein, there was Rodgers and Hart. They’d met when Rodgers was still in high school, going on to write a slew of hit musicals including such well-known songs as “My Funny Valentine,” “Isn’t it Romantic” and the enduring “Blue Moon.” Ethan Hawke, Linklater’s friend and frequent collaborator, somehow manages to shrink himself to fit the agitated,...

Richard Linklater is back at the Berlinale 11 years after he won the Silver Bear prize for his Oscar-winning “Boyhood,” this time with “Blue Moon,” a wistful chamber piece set on the opening night of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” in 1943. But the period comedy, which premieres in competition tonight at the festival, assumes the perspective of Lorenz Hart, the great American lyricist who was one half of Rodgers and Hart before a creative split.

The film takes place in or around the same bar at Sardi’s, where Rodgers (Andrew Scott) is greeting his rapturous public after the musical’s Broadway premiere while trying to keep a distance from his former creative collaborator, whose boozing and insecurities (and often wild overconfidence) make people uncomfortable. Ethan Hawke undergoes a unique physical transformation to give a theatrical but never overplayed performance as a five-foot-tall, sexually ambiguous alcoholic perched precariously on the wagon.

“They gave up on me a long time ago,” filmmaker Richard Linklater joked this afternoon during a press conference in Berlin for his latest flick, Blue Moon.

The veteran Golden Bear winner was referring to the Hollywood film industry, and what he believes they have given up on is his ability to make traditional, commercially-minded movies.

“I don’t think I’ve compromise at all over the years. We have no pressure. We do whatever we want,” Linklater added in reference to Blue Moon. “This was a small-budget movie. There’s no test screenings or anything like that.”

Blue Moon is Linklater’s 25th film and his ninth collaboration with his longtime muse, Ethan Hawke. The pair were characteristically cool this afternoon at the press conference. They were joined by Margaret Qualley (The Substance) and Andrew Scott (Ripley), who also star in the movie.

Unlike most press conferences this year in Berlin,...

Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe will star in 'The Weight'.The two actors will appear in director Padraic McKinley's upcoming historical period drama, which will be set in Oregon in the early 1930s, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.The movie - which has been written by Shelby Gaines, Matthew Chapman, and Matthew Booi based on an original story by the latter and Leo Scherman - will see the 'Boyhood' actor portray Samuel Murphy, who is imprisoned in a labour camp following the death of his wife. He wants to escape in order to regain custody of his daughter Penny but gets mixed up in a gold smuggling scheme from the facility's unscrupulous overseer Clancy (Crowe), leading to him having to navigate danger from both the wilderness and potential betrayal from his own group.Principal photography will begin in Bavaria this summer, and the movie has secured €2 million...

Protagonizan el proyecto Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale y Andrew Scott. © Berlinale

Hoy se han dado a conocer las películas que competirán por el Oso de Oro en el Festival Internacional de Cine de Berlín –más conocido como Berlinale– en su 75 edición, que se celebrará del 13 al 23 de febrero.

Entre las películas a concurso, la que más destaca es Blue Moon, la nueva película de Richard Linklater (Hit Man) con un reparto de lujo al frente: Ethan Hawke en su novena colaboración con el director, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale y Andrew Scott.

Escrita por Robert Kaplow, autor de la novela Me and Orson Welles, Blue Moon narra los últimos días de Lorenz Hart, miembro del dúo de compositores Rodgers & Hart. La película se desarrolla principalmente en el restaurante Sardi’s el día 31 de marzo de 1943, mientras su antiguo colaborador Richard Rodgers celebra el estreno de su exitoso musical Oklahoma!.

La película comenzará su rodaje este verano.

De acuerdo con Deadline, Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale y Andrew Scott protagonizarán la nueva película del aclamado director Richard Linklater (“Hit Man”), “Blue Moon”, que comenzará su rodaje este verano en Dublín, Irlanda.

Escrita por Robert Kaplow, autor de la novela “Me and Orson Welles”, “Blue Moon” narra los últimos días de Lorenz Hart, miembro del dúo de compositores Rodgers & Hart. La película se desarrollará principalmente en el restaurante Sardi’s el día 31 de marzo de 1943, que fue la noche del estreno de ¡Oklahoma!, que supuso la primera colaboración de Rodgers con Oscar Hammerstein II como sustituto de Hart.

Linklater ha dicho «Robert, Ethan y yo hemos estado desarrollando esta historia durante más de una década y estamos emocionados y agradecidos de que haya llegado el momento de darle vida.»

Un portavoz de Sony Pictures Classics declaró: «Hace casi un año,...

Ethan Hawke is set to star in Richard Linklater's 'Blue Moon'.The 53-year-old actor will collaborate with the director for the ninth time on the film that will begin production in Dublin this summer.Other cast members to have signed up for the flick include Margaret Qualley, Andrew Scott and Bobby Cannavale.'Blue Moon' has been written by Robert Kaplow and tells the story of the final days of Lorenz Hart – one half of the successful Rodgers and Hart songwriting duo – in 1943.The movie is primarily set on the opening night of 'Oklahoma!' which marked Richard Rodgers's first collaboration with Hart's replacement Oscar Hammerstein II.Linklater said: "Robert, Ethan and I have been developing this story for over a decade and are excited and grateful that the time has come to bring this to life."Sony Pictures Classics have acquired the worldwide rights to the...

Richard Linklater is getting ready to turn his attention from one Hit Man to another of an altogether different kind with Blue Moon, a new biopic profiling the dying days of Lorenz Hart, one half of legendary mid-century American songwriting duo Rodgers & Hart. And the Boyhood filmmaker has brought together a hell of a cast for this new project. As reported by Deadline, Linklater's movie — which has landed worldwide distribution via Sony — is set to star Ethan Hawke in his ninth collaboration with his Before trilogy director, as well as Margaret Qualley (Kinds Of Kindness), Andrew Scott (Ripley), and Bobby Cannavale (Blonde)

Due to start shooting in Dublin, Ireland this summer, Blue Moon has been a long-term passion project for Linklater. "Robert [Kaplow], Ethan [Hawke], and I have been developing this story for over a decade and are excited and grateful that the time has come to bring this to life,...

Deadline reports that Ethan Hawke is set to reunite with Richard Linklater once again for Blue Moon, a drama which dives into the final days of Lorenz Hart, one half of the songwriting team Rodgers & Hart.

In addition to Hawke, Blue Moon will also feature Margaret Qualley (The Substance), Bobby Cannavale (Ezra), and Andrew Scott (Ripley). Production will kick off in Dublin, Ireland this summer. Sony Pictures Classics has acquired the worldwide rights for the project, which has been scripted by Robert Kaplow. The film will be set “primarily in Sardi’s Restaurant on March 31, 1943, the opening night of Oklahoma!, which marked Rodgers’s first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II as Hart’s replacement.“

“Robert, Ethan and I have been developing this story for over a decade and are excited and grateful that the time has come to bring this to life,” Linklater said in a statement. A spokesperson for...

Sony Pictures Classics has picked up all rights worldwide to Richard Linklater’s upcoming Blue Moon starring Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, and Andrew Scott.

Production is scheduled to begin in early July in Dublin on the feature, which profiles the final days of Lorenz Hart, one half of the songwriting team Rodgers & Hart.

Blue Moon is set primarily in Sardi’s Restaurant on March 31, 1943, the opening night of Oklahoma!, Rodgers’ first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II as Hart’s replacement.

Sony Pictures Classics is co-financing with Renovo Media Group and will support the production. Sony will release the film worldwide.

Sony Pictures Classics has nabbed the worldwide rights to Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon, which is set to star Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale and Andrew Scott.

Production is set to start in early July in Dublin on the drama about the final days of Lorenz Hart, half of the songwriting team Rodgers & Hart and set around Sardi’s Restaurant on March 31, 1943, on the opening night of Oklahoma!

That production marked Rodgers’ first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II as Hart’s replacement. Sony Pictures Classics and Renovo Media Group are financing Blue Moon, which is written by Robert Kaplow and reunites Linklater with Hawke in their ninth movie together.

“Robert, Ethan and I have been developing this story for over a decade and are excited and grateful that the time has come to bring this to life,” Linklater said in a statement. Sony Pictures and Linklater have also collaborated...

After making his last two movies for Netflix, Richard Linklater is heading back to movie theaters for his next project, and he’s also reuniting with one of his longtime collaborators for the first time in a decade: Ethan Hawke.

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired the rights to what will be Linklater’s next film, “Blue Moon,” the distributor announced Tuesday, June 18. Joining the project are Hawke, now working with Linklater for the ninth time, as well as Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, and “Ripley” star Andrew Scott.

Principal photography on “Blue Moon” begins in Dublin, Ireland this summer with financing from Sony Pictures Classics and Renovo Media Group.

“Blue Moon” is about the final days of Lorenz Hart, who was half of the songwriting duo Rodgers and Hart. The film takes place largely in Sardi’s Restaurant on March 31, 1943 on the opening night of “Oklahoma!,” the first project Rodgers would...

When, just last month, I talked to Richard Linklater about this prolific moment in his career, I had zero notion he’d been well into preparing a new-new film––following Hit Man, Hometown Prison, and the yet-to-premiere Nouvelle Vague, which says nothing of a Merrily We Roll Along movie coming in 15-17 years. Per Deadline, cameras roll this summer on Blue Moon, a feature scripted by Me and Orson Welles author Robert Kaplow that’ll reunite him with Ethan Hawke and Bobby Cannavale, while Margaret Qualley and Andrew Scott co-star.

Linklater’s next follows Lorenz Hart, a longterm collaborator of Richard Rodgers, and is “set primarily in Sardi’s Restaurant on March 31, 1943, the opening night of Oklahoma!, which marked Rodgers’s first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II as Hart’s replacement.” Hardly a move to capitalize on the commercial hit of his latest: Linklater says he, Hawke, and Kaplow “have...

Exclusive: Sony Pictures Classics has acquired worldwide rights to Blue Moon, the new film from Academy Award nominee Richard Linklater (Hit Man), on which we were first to report, and which will be his next effort after all, with production commencing in Dublin, Ireland this summer.

Ethan Hawke is set to star, in his ninth collaboration with Linklater. Others aboard for roles include Margaret Qualley (The Substance), Bobby Cannavale (Ezra) and Andrew Scott (Ripley).

According to Linklater, who’d previously hinted at a long-time passion project with Hawke, “Robert, Ethan, and I have been developing this story for over a decade and are excited and grateful that the time has come to bring this to life.”

Written by Robert Kaplow, author of the novel Me and Orson Welles which inspired the Linklater film of the same name, Blue Moon profiles the final days of Lorenz Hart, part of the hit songwriting team Rodgers & Hart.

Hit Man is heading to Netflix this week, but Richard Linklater is already planning his next film, reportedly titled Blue Moon.

Richard Linklater is already lining up his next project as his latest film, Hit Man, hits Netflix later this week.

According to Deadline, Linklater will next be adapting the lives of American songwriters Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart into a feature film. The film will reportedly be titled Blue Moon, which comes from a 1934 song by Rodgers and Hart, who are the musical masterminds behind 28 shows, including Babes In Arms and A Connecticut Yankee.

According to the report, Blue Moon “follows Hart as he attempts to save face while celebrating his former partner Rodgers’ great success on the night of his musical Oklahoma!‘s Broadway opening.”

Read more: Hit Man review | Glen Powell shoots for stardom in Richard Linklater’s brilliant comedy

Robert Kaplow has reportedly penned the script...

Exclusive: As his acclaimed comedic thriller Hit Man approaches its June 7 release on Netflix, filmmaker Richard Linklater may have identified his next project, as sources tell Deadline that he’s in development on a film called Blue Moon.

Taking its name from the 1934 ballad written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, the film follows Hart as he attempts to save face while celebrating his former partner Rodgers’ great success on the night of his musical Oklahoma!‘s Broadway opening. While it’s believed that this will end up being Linklater’s next film, that’s not entirely clear at present.

We’re told that Robert Kaplow — co-writer of Linklater’s 2008 film Me and Orson Welles — penned the script for Blue Moon and that Linklater will produce the project alongside his manager John Sloss.

A legendary American songwriting duo known for their contributions to musical theater, Rodgers and Hart collaborated between 1919 and the early 1940s,...

McKay as Orson Welles in Me and Orson Welles. Courtesy of Freestyle Pictures. Christian McKay took a very unorthodox route to his starring role alongside Zac Efron and Claire Danes in Me and Orson Welles, in which McKay portrays the legendary auteur as a young man. In his first major stab at acting, McKay played Welles in a one-man stage show that debuted at the 2004 Edinburgh International Festival. When he brought the show to New York a couple of years later, two of the people in his audience were Robert Kaplow, who had written a novel called Me and Orson Welles, and Richard Linklater, who was directing the movie adaptation. (Linklater’s other films include Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, and Before Sunset). Like most of the critics, Kaplow and Linklater adored McKay’s performance, and Linklater cast the then 34-year-old unknown in his first film role. He delivers...

Release Date: Nov. 25 (limited) Director: Richard Linklater Writers: Holly Gent Palmo, Vince Palmo Jr. (novel by Robert Kaplow) Starring: Christian McKay, Claire Danes, Zac Efron Cinematographer: Dick Pope Studio/Run Time: Freestyle Releasing, 113 mins. Newcomer upstages teen heartthrob in Richard Linklater’s latest Zac Efron is ostensibly the star of Me and Orson Welles—he has the biggest name, at least, thanks to his role in High School Musical. But he plays the nondescript pronoun in the film’s title, not the bigger-than-life dynamo who wraps pre-war New York City around his little finger. That role belongs to little-known Christian McKay, who...

Me and Orson Welles, Richard Linklater’s

new coming of age feature set in 1937 stars Disney teen throb Zac Efron, star of High School Musical, who stretches himself as an actor playing the young aspiring actor Richard who lands a job with Orson Welles (played expertly by newcomer Christian McKay) and his legendary Mercury Theatre Company. The whirlwind experience of working with the boy genius and appearing in Welles’ soon-to-be groundbreaking production of Julius Caesar as Lucillus sets his life on a new course. In that same week, he also finds romance with older woman Sonja (Claire Danes). The film is "A really satisfying backstage drama, this is an exhilarating tour around a man whose talent was almost as big as his ego. " wrote Kim Newman in Empire Magazine. It's "a movie of great spirit and considerable charm," addsDavid Denby.

And now thanks to Freestyle Releasing and GreenCine, you can...

I am not only a sucker for 1930s comedies, but I also love movies that are set in the 1930s. The dialogue! The costumes! The music! And especially the hats. I love a good hat in a movie, right up there with a well-written script and a lack of treacly sentiment.

Fortunately for me, Me and Orson Welles has a well-written script, no treacle, and lovely Thirties period costumes, including a few sharp hats. The latest film from Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater is set in New York City in 1937, when Orson Welles decided to stage Julius Caesar at the newly dubbed Mercury Theater. Local screenwriters Holly Gent Palmo and Vincent Palmo, Jr. adapted the novel by Robert Kaplow.

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The best ever love letter/horror story about the seductions and anxieties of life in the theater is the Canadian television show Slings & Arrows. This enchantingly bittersweet little film might be the second best. Based on the novel by Robert Kaplow [Amazon U.S.] [Amazon U.K.] and brought to the screen by Richard Linklater -- one of the masters of modern melancholy, if only for his diptych of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset -- this is an acerbic coming-of-age story, a warmly yearning nostalgia piece, and a smartly uproarious farce all in one. The year is 1937, and Orson Welles is about to launch Broadway’s first production of Shakespeare: a modern-dress fascist take on Julius Caesar. Into the histrionic fray of drama onstage and off at the newly formed Mercury Theater strolls 17-year-old Richard Samuels (the ever delightful Zac Efron: 17 Again), who charms and bluffs his way into a small role in the show.

A schoolboy stumbles upon a major role in Welles's production of Julius Caesar in this sublime adaptation of Robert Kaplow's book

It is difficult to recapture the excitement Orson Welles generated 50 years ago among cinephiles and serious theatregoers. When George Coulouris joined the Bristol Old Vic Company in 1950 after a lengthy sojourn in the States my fellow sixth-formers and I were thrilled beyond measure to have in our city an actor who'd played Mark Antony opposite Welles in the Mercury company's fabled 1937 modern dress production of Julius Caesar and had a leading role in Citizen Kane. Yet none of us had seen Citizen Kane which had been out of distribution since shortly after its opening in 1941. We only knew of him through a few film appearances, most notably The Third Man, and his reputation for brilliance, wit and innovation, and what a few years later we'd learn to call charisma.

War of the Worlds is one of those classic films everyone has to see. The original radio broadcast by Orson Welles, scared half the planet into thinking we were actually being invaded. It was just one of many examples to the man's brilliance in whatever it was he was doing. Whether it be the theater, film or radio. In this interview, I spoke with Chrsitian McCay about playing the famous Orson, Claire Danes on her role in the film and Zac about going outside the box and playing a teenager that can sing. The screenplay by Holly Gent Palmo and Vincent Palmo Jr. is based on the novel by Robert Kaplow, a coming-of-age story set in the heady world of New York theatre. Efron plays a teenage student who lucks his way into a minor role in the 1937 Mercury Theatre production of "Julius Caesar," directed by 22-year-old genius Orson Welles.

Chicago – In our latest drama edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 50 admit-two passes up for grabs to the advance Chicago screening of “Me and Orson Welles” with Claire Danes and Zac Efron from director Richard Linklater of “School of Rock”!

“Me and Orson Welles” also stars Imogen Poots, Eddie Marsan, Christian McKay, Ben Chaplin, Zoe Kazan, Kelly Reilly, James Tupper, Leo Bill, Al Weaver, Iain McKee, Simon Lee Phillips, Simon Nehan and Patrick Kennedy from director Richard Linklater (who also directed “School of Rock,” “Fast Food Nation,” “Bad News Bears,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Before Sunset” and “Before Sunrise”).

The film opens on Dec. 11, 2009. To win your free pass to the advance Chicago screening of “Me and Orson Welles” courtesy of HollywoodChicago.com, just answer our question below. That’s it! This screening will be held on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. in downtown Chicago. Directions to enter...

Updated through 11/27.

"In the traditional mythologies," begins Andrew Schenker in Slant, "two views of Orson Welles predominate, neither exactly flattering: the boy genius of the pre-Citizen Kane years, a fiery, arrogant wunderkind who cares for nothing except his art, unless it's the company of as many women as will have him; and later, the bloated fatso pissing his legacy away on indifferent supporting roles and television spots while unable to complete any work of his own. Whatever the historical accuracy of these images may be (and we know that the second, in particular, is a dangerously false characterization), it's not clear what productive use is to be gained from their continued rehashing. Which is why, among other reasons, Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles, which draws on Robert Kaplow's novel of the same name and takes place during the filmmaker's 1937 make-it-or-break-it stage production of Julius Caesar, seems such an unenlightening exercise.

Here are some excellent interviews giving us a great insight into the movie, ‘Me and Orson Welles’ which stars Ben Chaplin, Claire Danes, Zac Efron, Zoe Kazan, Eddia Marsan and Christian McKay.

Our friend, James Kleinmann was able to interview the three leads from the movie and also director, Richard Linklater (The School of Rock, Before Sunset) asking him about what had drawn him to Robert Kaplow’s novel.

Interview with Zach Efron:

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Interview with Claire Danes:

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Interview with Christian McKay (Orson Welles):

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Interview with Richard Linklater (Director):

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Me and Orson Welles is released 4th December and if you haven’t already seen it, you can see the trailer here.

Orson Welles lives again while poor old Zac Efron continues to struggle the first time around in Richard Linklater’s enjoyable tale of board treading, rubbing shoulders with history and first love.

Efron’s Richard Samuels is a mere whippersnapper in 1937 New York, who eyes a career on the stage. His encounter with the now legendary Mercury Theatre Company, lead by none other than theatrical, and later motion picture impresario, Orson Welles, proves fruitful, as he successfully charms the notoriously fickle genius and secures a part in his new production of Julius Caesar. He also secures the eye of production assistant Sonja (Claire Danes) which brings him into potential conflict with Welles and threatens his place in the troupe.

The tease of Linklater’s film, and the Robert Kaplow source novel, is the opportunity afforded to spend time with a young and as yet unburdened by self-doubt Orson Welles at...

Between his roles in the Broadway musical adaptation "Hairspray," two seasons on the WB series "Summerland" and the unholy Disney Channel trilogy "High School Musical," blue-eyed, pert-nosed actor and singer Zac Efron's become a heartthrob to young girls en masse. Now just 22 years old, he's begun to diversify in his career pickings, following up this past spring's studio comedy "17 Again" with the Richard Linklater-directed period indie "Me and Orson Welles."

Based on Robert Kaplow's novel, the film stars Efron as Richard Samuels, an ambitious teen actor who weasels his way into a 1937 Broadway production of "Julius Caesar," directed by a megalomaniacal, temperamental genius: yes, one mister Orson Welles (rivetingly played by Christian McKay). As Richard becomes smitten with a tough-minded production assistant (Claire Danes), he learns that both love and success have their complications, but at least he gets to sing. By phone, Efron spoke with me about him and Orson Welles,...