It truly is a bittersweet feeling to know that the chances of Kylo Ren appearing in any of the numerous Star Wars movies and TV shows that Disney has planned for the future are slim. I believe it is safe to say that Han Solo and Leia Organa’s morally conflicted Sith Lord son was one of the few more recently introduced aspects of the franchise that most fans could actually agree on, due in part to the stunning performance of the actor who portrayed him. Luckily, audiences will still have more than enough chances to bear witness to his talents in several upcoming Adam Driver movies.
The 37-year-old two-time Academy Award nominee and former Marine Core officer has already proven that he can pretty much nail any kind of role you throw at him and in just about any style of genre you could think of. He made us laugh in Steven Soderbergh’s country-fried heist comedy Logan Lucky and on the acclaimed HBO hit Girls as a series regular. He also thrilled us as a Jewish undercover cop helping his Black partner (John David Washington) infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan in Spike Lee’s true crime drama BlacKkKlansman and we have already established how he became an icon of science fiction cinema in the last decade.
Adam Driver will once again tackle each of those same genres and more in a few new movie releases in 2021 and beyond. The following is a breakdown of the six forthcoming titles starring the versatile A-lister to look forward to, starting with one long-awaited period epic.
The Last Duel - October 15, 2021 (Post-Production)
Adam Driver will be part of a much-anticipated onscreen reunion of Ben Affleck with Matt Damon, outside of their other recent team-ups for charity in recent years, in this medieval drama. Unfortunately, fans will have to wait a bit longer than they had hoped. Originally planned for a Christmas Day release in 2020, The Last Duel was delayed after filming in France was postponed in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and is now set to come out on October 15, 2021, nearly a year after completing principal photography in Ireland.
In their first re-teaming as both screenwriters (having adapted Eric Jager’s book with Nicole Holofcener) and co-stars since their Academy Award-winning work on 1997’s Good Will Hunting, Ben Affleck plays King Charles VI, who orders Matt Damon’s Sir Jean de Carrogues to a quarrel with his squire Jacque LeGris (Adam Driver, in a role that Affleck was previously attached to) in order to put a personal conflict between them to an end. Emmy-winning Killing Eve actress Jodie Comer also stars as the wife of Damon’s knighted character in The Last Duel, which also reunites Damon with his The Martian director Ridley Scott at the helm.
House of Gucci - November 24, 2021 (Filming)
Adam Driver has already reunited with his The Last Duel director Ridley Scott for another historical drama coming to theaters in the fall of 2021. However, instead of a portrait of the bitter scorn and violent savagery that the Dark Ages is already well known for, House of Gucci is a portrait of the bitter scorn and violent savagery that the fashion industry has also gained much notoriety for. Yet, this is a story that is truly criminal.
As Maurizio Gucci, the socialite grandson of world renowned fashion icon Guccio Gucci (Al Pacino), Adam Driver will share the screen with Lady Gaga as his then-wife, Patrizia Reggiani, in her first big movie role since her Academy Award nominated performance in 2018’s A Star is Born remake. The film, taking inspiration from the non-fiction book by Sara Gay Forden, will chronicle how Patrizia planned Maurizio’s murder after he left her for a younger woman in the mid-1990s. With a star-studded ensemble that also includes Oscar-winning actors Jared Leto and Jeremy Irons, House of Gucci is currently shooting in Italy and is set for a theatrical release on November 24, 2021.
White Noise - 2022 (Pre-Production)
Adam Driver earned his second Academy Award nomination (after BlacKkKlansman) for his lead role in Marriage Story, starring opposite fellow Oscar nominee Scarlett Johansson in the 2019 Netflix original dramedy from writer and director Noah Baumbach. Driver is reportedly reuniting for what will be his fifth collaboration with Baumbach and would also be the acclaimed filmmaker's first adaptation of a pre-existing work of literature.
Not to be confused with the 2005 supernatural thriller starring Michael Keaton, White Noise is based on the award-winning 1985 novel by Don DeLillo which offers a unique, satirical analysis on modern American consumerism through the eyes of Jack Gladney, his fourth wife, Babette, and his four children. Adam Driver is said to be playing Jack while Greta Gerwig (actress, Academy Award-nominated Lady Bird and Little Women director, and wife of Noah Baumbach) has been cast as Babette. Now in pre-production, the film will also be Baumbach's third to be distributed by Netflix and is shooting for a 2022 release.
Annette (Completed)
We have not yet seen the last of the family dramas that Adam Driver has on his to-do list, but we have never really seen the actor in any film quite like this one, either. That is, unless you count his brief appearance in a memorable recording studio sequence from Joel and Ethan Coen's 1960s folk scene homage Inside Llewyn Davis with his future Star Wars co-star Oscar Isaac and pop sensation Justin Timberlake in 2013. If you choose not to count that amusing moment, then that means we can call Annette Driver's first musical.
From acclaimed French auteur Leos Carax, the film is said to be a love story between a stand-up comedian named Henry, played by Adam Driver, and an opera singer named Ann, played by French actress and Inception star and Marion Cotillard, who also won an Academy Award in 2008 for her lead role in the Edith Piaf biopic La Vie En Rose. According to IndieWire, the majority of the story will be told through original music and lyrics written by Ron and Russell Mael of the 1970s rock duo Sparks. Production of Annette is reportedly finished and would have premiered at 2020's Cannes Film Festival if not for Covid-19, but does not have an official release date at the moment.
65 (Post-Production)
As previously established, we know Adam Driver as a star of sci-fi with the Star Wars sequels and Jeff Nichols' Midnight Special from 2016. We also know him as a leading man of horror thrillers like writer and director Jim Jarmusch's star-studded zombie flick The Dead Don't Die, which technically qualifies as such, I think. Yet, we have never seen him in a movie that could definitively be described as a pure combination of the two genres, but it appears that is all about to change with 65.
There is not much we can tell you about the heavily guarded plot of 65, which marks the directorial debut of 2018's A Quiet Place writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods who also wrote the screenplay for this new feature, which is being produced by Sam Raimi and Zainab Azizi. What is known is that Adam Driver is leading a cast that also includes Ariana Greenblatt, best known for playing Young Gamora in Avengers: Infinity War, and Chloe Coleman of My Spy and HBO drama Big Little Lies fame. The Sony thriller, shot on location in Lousiana's Kisatchie National Forest, is now in post-production with no set release date.
Yankee Comandante (In Development)
I just mentioned earlier how Adam Driver had a role in writer and director Jeff Nichols' acclaimed 2016 science fiction drama Midnight Special. Well, coincidentally, the actor and the filmmaker (also known for the gripping 2011 psychological thriller Take Shelter with Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain and the romantic, Academy Award-nominated Civil Rights era biopic Loving, are reportedly working on a second collaboration together. This time, however, the story is not in the realm of fiction.
Not to be confused with another film about essentially the same topic to be directed by George Clooney, Yankee Comandante is inspired by an article from the New York Times by David Grann that tells the true story of William Alexander Morgan. The rebel American soldier from Ohio would help Cuban Revolutionary Fidel Castro take down the country's former president Fulgencio Batista in the 1970s and, in the process, become the only non-Cuban to earn the rank of "comandante" other than Che Guevara of Argentina. Adam Driver will likely play Morgan in the intriguing biopic that is currently in development.
Adam Driver is an actor who rarely fails to impress, whether it is by the strength of his performance or simply by the choice of his projects. By that logic, we seem to be in for some really powerful stuff for the Star Wars actor's forthcoming return to the big screen. Is there a movie in his future that looks most interesting to you?
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