With a star-studded cast of the first magnitude, Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City will be making its impact in theaters in June.
Focus Features announced this week that the 1950s-themed film will have a limited theatrical release on June 16, 2023, with a further general release set for a week later. As the parent company of Focus Features, Universal Pictures will be handling international distribution.
The release coincides with a constellation of other adventure flicks, including The Flash from Warner Bros. and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny from Disney.
Anderson, whose recent films include Moonrise Kingdom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Isle of Dogs, and The French Dispatch, co-wrote the story with Roman Coppola.
Set in a fictionalized New Mexico town in the 1950s, Asteroid City takes place during a gathering of Junior Stargazer/Space Cadets as a real-life astronomical disaster threatens to disrupt things on a massive scale. But it’s not all fire and brimstone: the film is described by its producers as a “poetic meditation on the meaning of life.”
In announcing the new release, Peter Kujawsiki, the chair of Focus Features, said: “We are beyond thrilled to be the global home for Asteroid City, bringing Focus back in business with Wes and his producing partners. 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.”
Fisher Stevens, who worked with Anderson on The French Dispatch, was with the cast during production in Spain. He was quoted as saying: “I can tell you it’s probably the best, the wildest cast since The Bridge on the River Kwai. Most of the actors in this film have been in theater except for the kids. We were all bubbled together in a hotel, which was an old monastery. I think it’s going to be quite an extravaganza.”
The “wildest cast” he describes includes the likes of Tom Hanks, Margot Robbie, Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Ed Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Stephen Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Tony Revolori, Jake Ryan, Grace Edwards, Aristou Meehan, Sophia Lillis, Ethan Lee, Jeff Goldblum, and Rita Wilson.
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