Wes Anderson to take us down to the Asteroid City next summer
The acclaimed director's 11th feature stars Jason Schwartzman and Scarlett Johansson
Aux News Wes Anderson
Following the previous tease that “Asteroid City is a poetic meditation on the meaning of life,” more details are starting to emerge about the upcoming Wes Anderson film. The acclaimed director’s 11th feature will arrive in theaters with a limited release on June 16, 2023, before expanding into additional markets the following weekend.
“Asteroid City takes place in a fictional American desert town circa 1955,” reads the film’s official description from Focus Features. The distributor has also updated the following synopsis:
The itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention (organized to bring together students and parents from across the country for fellowship and scholarly competition) is spectacularly disrupted by world-changing events.
While that’s not the most detailed description, Asteroid City will undoubtedly inspire many a Halloween costume for years to come. Anderson co-wrote the screenplay with Roman Coppola. The two have worked together numerous times since 2007's The Darjeeling Limited, and Coppola most recently received a story credit on The French Dispatch, which was released last year.
“We are beyond thrilled to be the global home for Asteroid City, bringing Focus back in business with Wes and his producing partners,” Focus Features chairman Peter Kujawski says in a statement via IndieWire. “Wes is a generational talent whose films delight audiences around the world; and we’re sure that the combination of his incredibly emotional story and vision combined with the insanely talented group of actors he has assembled, will mean that Asteroid City will be no different.”
Jason Schwartzman, who has frequently collaborated with Anderson since 1998's Rushmore, is receiving top billing this time around. He’s joined by Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Stephen Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Grace Edwards, Aristou Meehan, Sophia Lillis, Jeff Goldblum, Rita Wilson, and Ethan Lee. Bill Murray was originally announced as part of Asteroid City’s cast, but he was replaced by Carell after the The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou star came down with a case of COVID-19.
Anderson has already locked in his next project. Asteroid City will be followed by The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar, an adaptation of the Roald Dahl book starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, Friend, Dev Patel, Richard Ayoade, and Ben Kingsley.
39 Comments
God bless Jason Schwartzmann for continuing to pull down roles but I confess I’ve never seen the appeal, especially in the “what a sexy motherfucker this guy is” mode a la Darjeeling or Funny People.
It’s the eyebrows and the smarmy charm. I think he’s been settling into a sort of character actor groove, playing napoleonic dipshits in Fargo and Righteous Gemstones. I love it.
He puts that smarm to great villainous effect in ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. The World’.
i’ve disliked him since rushmore. stalker movie.
Rushmore is an absolute classic film.
Wes Anderson seems like a decent person with a lot of character. It eludes me why he seems to relate to Jason Schwartzmann, whose characters most often lack those traits.
He was funny in high school.Source: I went to high school with him (although he was a couple years behind me).
very excited for this one. i thought french dispatch was one of his best movies yet and i’d like to see what kind of fire covid set in him, because he immediately did this one and then jumped to henry sugar. i don’t think he’s moved this quickly from project to project ever.
I thought it was one of his worst. I realize his movies are all heavily mannered, but I struggled to see anything in FD beyond the production design and costuming. I’ve never seen so many deliberately flat performances. Not deadpan in his usual directorial style, just flat.
I’m with you. It seemed like he was trying to make A Wes Anderson Movie, as if he’d lost the knack of being natural in his style.
I think it was his most formally accomplished in that he really reached an apex of “movie as other format” (in this case a magazine). But I think it was to the film’s detriment that it was broken down into articles that had little to do with each other. It was sort of inherent in teh concept though.
wild, wright’s segment in particular made me ugly cry. loved every second.
I probably would have enjoyed it more if it had just been a movie about Benicio del Toro’s character. That was the only segment I kind of liked.
Ha, you can say that about pretty much anything del Toro does. I was always curious what Fenster did in his spare time.
Thaaat’s a really good point. I never thought about it before, but you’re totally right. Someone (Tom Cruise) should tell Christopher McQuarrie to get on a Fenster movie.
I mean the cops pick him up coming out of a night club at dawn so it should be pretty damn entertaining.
Sorry, but I don’t think any space-themed 50s set film with a desert town setting can compete with “The Vast of Night”.
I’m surprised that there’s no reference to the similar setting of “Don’t Worry, Darling” in the article.
What about that wacky episode of Twin Peaks, “Got a light?”. Anyhow, “The Vast of Night” had some awesome cinematography to be sure.
Probably the best episode of that season, but it’s a TV episode rather than a film.
And Wes Anderson will never write dialogue so naturally charming.
Man, I know people love it, but hard disagree. Some nice camera work in between static shots of talking. And now I’m confused about whether I’m talking about Vast of Night or Wes Anderson.
I think I’ll be busy next summer, but okay.
Bill Murray was originally announced as part of Asteroid City’s cast, but he was replaced by Carell after the The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou star came down with a case of COVID-19 being Bill Murray.
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Think it’s too much to hope for a little change of pace from this guy? I love him and all, but damn if Dispatch, whatever its strengths, didn’t have a hint of staleness around it. Aesthetic can become schtick and schtick generally becomes self-parody. I don’t think we’re there yet, but we could get there and I don’t want that to happen with a director whose work I really enjoy. This just seems…extremely Wes Anderson.
His next movie is just going to be a static shot of an off-pink DIY birdhouse for 90 minutes.
I would buy tickets for that movie THIS SECOND if I could.
I don’t buy it. It’s got to be a tracking shot.
I see him progressing toward more and more formally complicated filmmaking until there is a a full lack of humanity to it. It would be good if he could do a robot movie at some point, maybe talking dolls.
I mean, I feel like we’ve gotten two talking doll movies…
Same boat. Someone make him do something new!
His 11th movie??? Tarantino needs to tell him to stop.
His Roman Coppola collaborations have resulted in some terrifically reviewed movies, but to me they just don’t have the same spark as those earlier films when Owen Wilson was his writing partners. I can pretty much draw a line right there between the Wes Anderson movies I’ll happily watch over and over versus the ones where once was enough.
There’s definitely a lack of warmth in the later stuff. Although I think Noah Baumbach did a good job of filling in.
Take me down to the Asteroid City where the sand is vast and the daddy issues are pretty.
For a hot second I read this as a Wes Anderson take on Astro City and I got very…..something.
Gee, I hope it’s really cutesy and all the images are perfectly balanced. That would be different.