More than two decades after Richard Linklater’s seminal high school coming-of-age film Dazed and Confused, there’s a follow-up coming — sort of.
Everybody Wants Some, a comedy delving into the personal lives of a college baseball team, has been called the “spiritual successor” to the 1993 cult classic according to the New York Times. The movie will debut at South by SouthWest in Austin, TX, the setting for Dazed, and Linklater’s old stomping grounds.
“Well, I think the word “spiritual” gets me off the hook,” said Linklater to Creative Screenwriting (via the New York Times). “I just shot it and wrapped it recently, and it has nothing to do with Dazed and Confused other than it would be set four years later, when one of the younger characters went off to college. It’s a party film … I guess personally or autobiographically it’s kind of in that realm, but it’s also a continuation of Boyhood, believe it or not. I don’t know if one film can be a sequel to two different movies, but it begins right where Boyhood ends with a guy showing up at college and meeting his new roommates and a girl. It overlaps with the end of Boyhood.”
Regardless of direct similarities, there’s definitely some continuity: while Dazed and Confused was set in ‘70s Texas, this upcoming film is set in the same state in the ‘80s. An ensemble cast will feature Blake Jenner, Ryan Guzman, Tyler Hoechlin, Wyatt Russell, Glen Powell, Will Brittain, and Zoey Deutch.
The five-time Oscar nominee, which includes a Best Picture nod last year for Boyhood, directed and wrote the new film Everyone Wants Some. Linklater produced the film with Megan Ellison (Zero Dark Thirty, American Hustle), and Ginger Sledge (Miss Congeniality, Bernie).
The film will receive its world premiere at Austin, Texas’ SXSW on March 11, 2016. Paramount will then release the film to wider audiences on April 15.