Richard Linklater may answer ‘Where’d You Go, Bernadette’

Richard Linklater spent 12 years making his coming-of-age opus “Boyhood,” but the auteur doesn’t usually take quite so long to deliver the goods.

Case in point: He has already wrapped his next movie, the college baseball dramedy “That’s What I’m Talking About,” and now he’s in early talks to direct an adaptation of Maria Semple’s novel “Where’d You Go, Bernadette,” a spokesperson for Annapurna Pictures confirmed to The Times.

The Hollywood Reporter first reported that Linklater is interested in the project, which features a script by “The Fault in Our Stars” writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber.

Published in 2012, “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” tells the story of a reclusive architect and mother who disappears before a family trip to Antarctica. A sort of modern epistolary novel, the book incorporates emails, memos, handwritten letters, magazine articles, police reports and other written materials.

Seeing as how Linklater just finished a grueling awards-season campaign for “Boyhood” and still has to deal with post-production on “That’s What I’m Talking About,” the filmmaker may not be in a hurry to commit to a new project.

On the other hand, Linklater is already in business with Annapurna chief Megan Ellison, who’s backing “That’s What I’m Talking About,” and he’s certainly no stranger to tackling unconventional narratives. So the question remains: Where’ll you go, Linklater?

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