Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke are using the rollout of Honey Don’t! to spell out what their collaboration is chasing: a queer spin on hard-boiled detective stories and a second entry in the “lesbian B-movie” cycle they began last year. The new film follows Bakersfield private investigator Honey O’Donahue, played by Margaret Qualley, whose case pulls her toward a church-linked web of violence; Aubrey Plaza and Chris Evans co-star. The feature premiered in Cannes’ Midnight program on May 24 and opens in the U.S. on August 22 via Focus Features.
In recent interviews tied to release, the filmmakers have framed the project as both genre play and a deliberate push for more queer leads in pulp settings, describing Honey Don’t! as part of a continuum that began on Drive-Away Dolls and will continue with a third film now in development. Cooke has discussed that follow-up—currently titled Go Beavers!—as a story built around a women’s rowing crew reunion.
The Cannes launch introduced a cast that folds character actors into the central trio, including Charlie Day as a fellow detective and Evans as a preacher whose charisma curdles into menace; early coverage emphasized Coen’s taste for abrupt, stylized bursts of violence within a comic register. Reuters
Press stops have also revived a question that trails any Coen-adjacent release: the possibility of the brothers reuniting. Coen has said he and Joel wrote a horror script together in San Francisco and would like to make it when schedules line up, while continuing to pursue the trilogy with Cooke. That stance tracks with recent reporting that a reunion is on the table, just not imminent.
Focus has positioned the film as a late-summer counterprogrammer and highlighted the Cannes reception in its campaign materials. The release plan follows a festival midnight slot that drew attention to the Bakersfield setting and the film’s lean, 80-something-minute running time as it heads into theaters this week.
