Wes Anderson, Scarlett Johansson stands out in the first trailer of Asteroid City

Wes Anderson with Asteroid City proposes a new essay on cinema

A trip to the 50s, to an invented city in the desert and with a cast of stars. Wes Anderson with Asteroid Cityis about to return to the cinema with a new auteur film that promises excitement and fun in full Andersonian style.

A worthy preview was offered to us by the first trailer of the film, released on March 29, which shows more information on the main plot points. To stand out above all is definitely Scarlett Johansson.

The trailer opens with families gathering in Asteroid City for the convention, and almost immediately Scarlett Johansson appears on screen in her 1950s sunglasses complete with red lips as a magnetic glamor movie star. But then, the aliens appear to make contact with the earthlings and the city becomes a quarantine zone. “I don’t like the way that guy, the alien, looked at us. As if we were doomed,” says Jason Schwartzman’s character. “Maybe we are,” Johansson replies deadpan. Everything else is a triumph of colors and vintage font lettering.

A city in the middle of nowhere

The film is called Asteroid City and, second The Hollywood Reporter, is «a poetic meditation on the meaning of life, in which the story of an imaginary American city located in the desert is told – in a period that goes around 1955 – as well as a convention of Junior Stargazers (young star hunters ), which brings together students and parents from across the country for academic competition, rest and recreation, comedy, drama, romance and more.” But everything – in the best tradition of Wes Anderson – will be turned upside down by events that will change the world”.

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Wes Anderson in triple version

The director not only directed the film, but also co-produced it and wrote the screenplay, based on an original story conceived together with Roman Coppola, already his collaborator in The train to Darjeeling (2007), Moonrise Kingdom – Elopement (2012) e The Isle of Dogs (2018), as well as in The French Dispatch. The latter – his tenth effort, released in theaters in 2021 – was a perfectly symmetrical and delightfully eccentric choral work dedicated to the world of journalism. Now, the idiosyncratic American author and director is preparing to return with another essay of great cinema, once again starring an ensemble cast.

The cast of the movie

Each new Wes Anderson film is a cinematic event in itself, but this latest film promises to be so thanks to its stellar cast. In addition to many of the faces we have already seen populating the director’s colorful universe – Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldblum, Edward Norton, Liev Schreiber, Stephen Park, Tony Revolori and Rupert Friend –, Asteroid City sees the presence of various new entries, including Margot Robbie, Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon and Hong Chau. Scarlett Johansson and Bryan Cranston also join this already rich parterre, making their debut in the flesh in a film by Wes Anderson after having both voiced the animated characters of The Isle of Dogs.

Asteroid City will be released in Italy on September 14th

Asteroid City will most likely debut in May at the Cannes Film Festival, before arriving in US theaters in June. In particular, the official release date is set for June 16, with limited distribution, to then be released in all theaters starting June 23, distributed by Focus Features in the USA. The film, distributed by Universal Pictures, will arrive in Italy next September 14th.

In the meantime, fans of the director will be able to enjoy his screen adaptation of the Roald Dahl story on Netflix The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (one of the seven short stories contained in Child’s play and other stories, 1977), with Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley and Richard Ayoade. Hopefully this creative fervor will continue to animate Anderson for a long time to come.

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This article was originally published on American Vogue.