Richard Linklater is about to unleash a double blast of premieres for his upcoming feature, Hit Man, which was announced as part of the festival lineups for Venice and Toronto.
Yesterday, the Toronto International Film Festival (Sept. 7-17) announced its 2023 lineup, and Linklater’s latest made the cut. The festival will also include new films from Alexander Payne (The Holdovers, reuniting him with his Sideways star Paul Giamatti), the directorial debut of Anna Kendrick (Woman of the Hour), a return to the director’s chair for Michael Keaton (Knox Goes Away) and Ethan Hawke, who directs his daughter, Maya Hawke, as she plays novelist Flannery O’Connor in Wildcat.
However, the TIFF screening is actually the North American premiere. The world premiere will take place at the Venice Film Festival (Aug. 30-Sept. 9), where Linklater’s film will share screen space with new features from Sofia Coppola (Priscilla Presley biopic Elvis and Me), Bradley Cooper (recounting composer Leonard Bernstein’s life story in Maestro), Michael Mann (Ferrari), Ava DuVernay (Origin) and more.
Hit Man marks Linklater’s first return to true crime after 2012’s black comedy Bernie, and yet again centers on a murder – well, sort of. The film follows the events recounted in a 2001 Texas Monthly story by Skip Hollandsworth about Gary Johnson, the most deadly assassin in Texas. Only he wasn’t. Johnson was a cop who would be contacted by people who wanted to put a contract on someone in their lives, only to be arrested and charged with conspiracy to murder. Basically, they were catfished by a cop.
The story was originally set in Houston, but Linklater actually shot the film earlier this year in New Orleans. Top Gun: Maverick star Glen Powell plays Johnson, and also cowrote the script with Linklater. He’s no stranger to the filmmaker’s sets, having appeared in both his animated childhood adventure Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood and period baseball diary Everybody Wants Some!!
This article appears in July 21 • 2023.
