Honey Don't (Ethan Coen, Margaret Qualley, Chris Evans, December 2025)

[Nitroes]

HONEY DON'T! - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters August 22 - YouTube

Not sure about the film but in for Qualley.

https://hmv.com/store/film-tv/blu-ray/honey-don-t!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FMFXBJ1R/


I do prefer the novel artwork they could've reworked it:


9780571399123

[darrellmaclaine]

Ethan Coen please blink three times if you need help.

The Coens since Scruggs is a descent previously only witnessed with Rob Reiner after A Few Good Men or Robert Zemeckis after he learned about motion capture. I honestly wonder if there's even a way back for them - a lot has changed in movie financing since the last time either of them had a money-making project (9 years ago), they don't figure on anybody's balance sheets anymore and none of their former studio allies are still there. Unless they reunite for a super low budget authenticity trip or do a horror for A24 (which I think was mooted at one point) I think they might have ended up in Director Jail without even realising.

Things are so precarious with their contemporaries - Tim Burton can't get a movie greenlit even after Beetlejuice 2 did well (not even Beetlejuice 3!), Alexander Payne is putting on a brave face but hasn't been able to turn the success of The Holdovers into a career resurgence and is emigrating, and if PTA's upcoming film flops he's going straight into the orange jumpsuit. Sam Raimi's hanging on by his fingernails, Kevin Smith has hit the buffers, everyone is in this 'one false move and you're dead' zone. And these are the directors who are still making good, well-received movies that have long-term catalogue value, while other auteur filmmakers are only surviving on angel investors like Coppola or Steven Rales, or Apple TV. The studio system now doesn't want auteurs, they want drones who can work interchangeably on IP slop with unfinished shooting scripts, who can be replaced at will and briefed against in the press if the film flops.

Things are so unforgiving right now that it's even happening by proxy - if Nia DaCosta's 28 Years Later sequel flops, *Danny Boyle* goes back into Director Jail! Meanwhile these Coen solo projects are just empty ego trips and every one of them burns more bridges while toxifying their once rightfully glorified brand.

[the13thman]

Originally Posted by darrellmaclaine

if Nia deCosta's 28 Years Later sequel flops, *Danny Boyle* goes back into Director Jail!

He'll deserve to, he gave her the film on a plate so it's all on him. The one saving grace is that she didn't write it.

Though to be honest I would put him in Director Jail just for the rubbish he's been talking recently.

[darrellmaclaine]

Originally Posted by the13thman

He'll deserve to, he gave her the film on a plate so it's all on him. The one saving grace is that she didn't write it.

I don't know her or her work (it mostly seems like generic franchise stuff I'm not into) but I am nervous because I actually adored 28 Years Later, and one of the main reasons was that there was so much about working class Northern culture and society in it which Boyle brought a lot of himself to, and she's an American who I would assume knows next to nothing about that because it is very under-represented in screen terms. Also she isn't really from an arthouse tradition, she does very conventional looking stuff, and that's another big element gone. It needs a bit of a maverick and she's a studio filmmaker.

The sequel as far as I am aware is about how tribalism manifests and re-establishes itself in a devolving version of northern English society, and she seems a really odd choice to hire an American director to tackle something so specifically anchored in British arcana. It's after all one long script that was broken into two anyway so I don't get why Boyle didn't just carry it on and chose to walk away from his own comeback - or if he wasn't available let Garland handle it himself. I'm a fan of Danny Boyle, not 'the Later franchise' (never seen 28 Weeks, no interest at all), and I just can't see this going well creatively or commercially. Hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised, but I don't reckon we'll get that third one.

[GaryCouzens]

Originally Posted by darrellmaclaine

Ethan Coen please blink three times if you need help.

The Coens since Scruggs is a descent previously only witnessed with Rob Reiner after A Few Good Men or Robert Zemeckis after he learned about motion capture. I honestly wonder if there's even a way back for them - a lot has changed in movie financing since the last time either of them had a money-making project (9 years ago), they don't figure on anybody's balance sheets anymore and none of their former studio allies are still there. Unless they reunite for a super low budget authenticity trip or do a horror for A24 (which I think was mooted at one point) I think they might have ended up in Director Jail without even realising.

I do remember "What's happened to the Coens?" talk after Intolerable Cruelty (which I think is underrated) and especially The Ladykillers (which I've only seen once but I'd say is the worst of their joint films by far). But then came No Country for Old Men. So there is hope, but as you say things are different now compared to then.

As for Ethan's and Tricia Cooke's recent films with Margaret Qualley, I remember that Drive-Away Dolls was part of a mini-trend of gay movies given wide or wideish multiplex releases, including All Of Us Strangers, Bottoms and Love Lies Bleeding. Strangers did fairly well as an awards contender but the others all bombed. I haven't seen Honey Don't yet but it is on at my local Cineworld so I could see it with my Unlimited Card. I don't expect it'll do any better.