Initially kept under a minor shroud of secrecy, plot details for Wes Anderson's next film, Asteroid City, have been revealed. The director has reunited with Focus Features and Indian Paintbrush, who previously released his coming-of-age story Moonrise Kingdom, for the film. Following the already impressive ensemble of his previous project, The French Dispatch, Anderson gathered an even more behemoth one for Asteroid City, including new recruits to the Anderson stable of actors like Margot Robbie, Steve Carell, and both Rita Wilson and her husband Tom Hanks.
Per a statement from Focus Features, the company calls Asteroid City "a poetic meditation on the meaning of life." The plot concerns the story of a fictional American desert town circa 1955 and its Junior Stargazer convention, which brings together students and parents from across the country for scholarly competition, rest, recreation, comedy, drama, romance, and more. Although set in America, the film was shot in Chinchón, Spain, just outside Madrid, and wrapped principal photography in November 2021.
Next in the pipeline, Anderson is working on another Roald Dahl adaptation The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More for Netflix starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Given his previous Dahl adaptation of Fantastic Mr. Fox and his past Focus/Indian Paintbrush collaboration, both Henry Sugar and Asteroid City seem likely to fall on the lighter, more whimsical side of Anderson's work, like Moonrise Kingdom, and less on the side of the more serious The Royal Tenenbaums. Either way, Asteroid City is sure to be another tale of exacting, dollhouse-like aesthetics and dryly humorous, but deeply wounded characters that he's known for.
Source: Focus Features