Even before Hereditary and Midsommar director Ari Aster’s most recent film, Beau Is Afraid, was released back in April of 2023, there were rumblings that his next project would be a “western noir dark comedy” called Eddington. This is a project Aster would be circling back to, because at one time he thought Eddington was going to be his first feature. Soon enough, it was confirmed that the “contemporary western that takes place during the pandemic” would be his fourth film – and the finished movie had its premiere screening at the 78th Annual Cannes Film Festival last month, where it received mixed reactions. The film is now set to receive a theatrical release on July 18th, and with that date just one month away, a batch of character posters have dropped online. You can check them out at the bottom of this article.
World of Reel previously reported that Eddington will tell a story that centers on a couple (Lindsay and Marc) driving through New Mexico, on their way to Los Angeles, who run out of gas just outside of small town Eddington, New Mexico. Lindsay and Marc decide to enter the town for help. They are, at first, greeted very warmly, but, as nightfall comes, the picturesque setting soon turns into a nightmare. Joaquin Phoenix, who was the lead in Beau Is Afraid, stars alongside Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us), Emma Stone (Poor Things), Austin Butler (Dune: Part Two), Luke Grimes (Yellowstone), Deirdre O’Connell (Outer Range), Micheal Ward (Top Boy), and Clifton Collins Jr. (Jockey).
Aster had actually spoken about this project years ago, when the director participated in an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session on Reddit. He explained, “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.” He told the Italian publication La Reppublica that Eddington is “sort of a – I don’t know if you’d call it a revisionist western. It’s contemporary; one foot is in the western and one foot is even more heavily in the noir genre. So it’s like a film noir ensemble western dark comedy.“
Are you looking forward to Eddington? Check out the character posters, then let us know by leaving a comment below.
