Ever since “Beau Is Afraid,” horror filmmaker Ari Aster has been touting his next project, a follow-up project that reunites him with Joaquin Phoenix. Describing it as a “Western comedy” set during the pandemic, the cast details are finally out via A24 (see below), confirming several rumors about the project over the past few months. Titled “Eddington,” the film does indeed star Joaquin Phoenix. Joining him in the leads are quite the cast in Emma Stone, Pedro Pascal, and Austin Butler. Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, and Clifton Collins Jr. are also set to appear. And like “Beau Is Afraid,” the film is said to be a nightmarish comedy about a couple (rumored to be Phoenix and Stone) who are on a road trip through New Mexico and run out of gas outside of a small town, Eddington, New Mexico.
For Stone and Phoenix, the film will be a reunion as they starred as the romantic leads of Woody Allen’s “Irrational Man” in 2015.
The synopsis making the rounds on trade reports centers on a couple on a road trip on their way to Los Angeles, who decide to enter the town for help, and they are greeted warmly and treated nicely at first. But the picturesque setting soon turns dark and nightmarish when nightfall arrives.
During a Reddit AMA last year, Aster said of the project, “There was a period of time when I thought “Midsommar” would be the debut feature, and there was a period when I thought another script called “Eddington” might be the first movie. For like five years, I was trying to get that Western-noir dark ensemble comedy going. That won’t be the next one, by the way, though I do still want to make it very badly. I made ‘Hereditary‘ first, but I always had “Midsommar” in my back pocket, like it was right there in me.”
“Although it’s sort of a—I don’t know if you’d call it a revisionist western,” he continued. “It’s contemporary; one foot is in the Western [genre], and one foot is even more heavily in the noir genre. So, it’s like a film noir ensemble western dark comedy.”
And yep, that all sounds about right. “Eddington” has begun production in New Mexico. Two-time Academy Award cinematographer Darius Khondji will shoot the film. A24 is on board the film as a producer and distributor. No release date has been set yet, but let’s presume 2025.
