Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne to Star in Richard Linklater's 'Sort of' Sequel to Jack Nicholson's 'The Last Detail'

By Rebecca Ford and Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter

Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston and Laurence Fishburne are in talks to star in Richard Linklater’s next movie, Last Flag Flying.

The project is Linklater’s long-in-the-works “sort of” sequel to the classic 1970s dramatic comedy The Last Detail that starred Jack Nicholson.

Last Flag was Darryl Ponsican’s sequel — published in 2005 — to his own 1970 landmark novel. It was made into the 1973 comedy-drama that was directed by Hal Ashby and starred Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid and Otis Young. The Last Detail was nominated for three Oscars and Nicholson won a BAFTA for his work.

Linklater first spoke about his interest in adapting Darryl Ponicsan’s book into a film back in 2006 and was at the time hoping to reunite Nicholson and Randy Quaid, with Morgan Freeman taking on the part played by Otis Young, who had passed away in 2001.

Now it looks like Linklater is finally hoisting it up the flagpole, with sources telling The Hollywood Reporter Amazon Studios has landed the project. It’ll be Linklater’s first project with the streaming giant, which recently released Woody Allen’s Cafe Society and Nicholas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon.

The original story centered on two Navy men (Nicholson, Young) who are ordered to bring a young offender (Quaid) to prison but decide to show him one last good time along the way. Last Flag reunites the reader with the trio, now living in a post-9/11 American life: the former Naval Petty Officers come to the aid of their former prisoner who needs their help to bring home the body of his son, the latter who was killed in Iraq. The request that sends them back retracing their journey from Norfolk, Virginia, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

A November start is being eyed.

Carell recently starred in the Oscar-nominated The Big Short and Woody Allen’s Cafe Society. He’s the creator of series Angie Tribeca and he’ll next be seen in the film Battle of the Sexes opposite Emma Stone. He’s repped by WME and Media Four.

Cranston has been working non-stop since wrapping up his acclaimed Breaking Bad television series. He recently starred in The Infiltrator and has a slew of upcoming films including the comedy Why Him? with James Franco, Franco’s directorial project The Masterpiece and the new Power Rangers film. He’s repped by UTA.

Fishburne, most recently seen in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, has Passengers with Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence coming up. He’ll also be seen in John Wick: Chapter Two. He’s repped by Paradigm and Landmark Artists Management.