Wes Anderson’s The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar will be an anthology film, according to those who worked on the project.
There’s an interesting hit of Wes Anderson news for you this morning, arriving just as the celebrated filmmaker’s latest project, Asteroid City prepares to land in cinemas later this month. We’ve known for a good year and a half now that Anderson has been harbouring plans to tackle another Roald Dahl adaptation and we’ve also known that the story in question would be The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar.
The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar is a tale about ‘a vapid man who enjoys gambling. To his surprise and good fortune, he discovers a book that teaches him how to ‘see without using his eyes’.
It sounds like perfect Wes Anderson fare but according to one of the film’s stars, that’s not all we’ll be getting.
Rupert Friend has been chatting about the project a little, with the most noteworthy reveal being that the film will be an anthology, containing four of the stories from Dahl’s collection. Says Friend “it could change, but when we made it, there were four stories drawn from a Roald Dahl [short story collection], which are his slightly darker, twisted ones that he wrote for adults. Wes took four of them and put together a smaller troupe of actors: myself, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, and Richard Ayoade. We each play in around two of the stories and kind of change roles. I think Ralph might be in all of them. My two are The Ratcatcher and The Swan.”
The two new stories revealed by Friend are certainly a little grislier than the tales that Dahl is best known for and we’re excited to see Anderson working with material that is skirts in a sinister direction. His 2009 stop motion take on Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox remains one of the very best adaptations of the late author’s work that’s out there and considering The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar’s stellar cast and Anderson’s unique style, this could be a lot of fun indeed.
World of Reel has also claimed that Anderson is busy setting his next project although next to nothing is known about it. The only details we have is that Michael Cera has been tapped to star, with Jeff Goldblum and Benicio del Toro also rumoured to be involved too.
As for The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar, the project is coming to Netflix, with hopes high for a release later this year, although that is not yet confirmed. Asteroid City hits cinemas on June 23rd so it looks like it might be a great year to be a Wes Anderson fan.
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