Wes Anderson, the director behind the Roald Dahl film Fantastic Mr. Fox, has announced that his forthcoming Netflix movie The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is only 37 minutes long.
An adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1977 book of short stories, the short will follow stories about how the icon became a writer whilst infusing reality with the imagination of the British novelist’s magical mind. Such is the perfect project for Anderson, having already proven that he and Dahl are a match made in heaven with the release of Fantastic Mr. Fox in 2009, starring George Clooney, Bill Murray and Meryl Streep.
Speaking about the new project with IndieWire, he stated: “I knew Roald Dahl since before we made Fantastic Mr. Fox. I met Lindsay Dahl, his widow, when we were shooting The Royal Tenenbaums like 20 years ago. For years I wanted to do Henry Sugar…It’s not a feature film. It’s like 37 minutes or something. But by the time I was ready to do it, the Dahl family no longer had the rights at all. They had sold the whole deal to Netflix”.
Continuing, he adds: “Suddenly, in essence, there was nowhere else you could do it since they own it. But beyond it, because it’s a 37-minute movie, it was the perfect place to do it because it’s not really a movie. You know they used to do these BBC things called Play for Today directed by people like Steven Frears and John Schlesinger and Alan Clarke. They were one hour programs or even less. I kind of envisioned something like that”.
Before The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is released later this year, Asteroid City is due to be released across cinemas worldwide in the coming weeks.
Take a look at the trailer for Asteroid City below.
