As reported byVariety, directorWes Andersonrecently discussed his upcoming film on Netflix,The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. During an interview withIndieWire, the filmmaker revealed that the movie, which is based on Roald Dahl’s 1977 short story collection, is only going to be “37 minutes” long.Henry Sugar is Anderson’s second adaptation of Dahl’s work, with the first beingFantastic Mr. Fox. The upcoming Netflix movie will star Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, and Ben Kingsley.
Henry Sugarwill be Anderson’s first Netflix original, but according to the filmmaker, collaborating with the streaming service was done more out of necessity than desire.
While chatting about his partnership with Netflix, Anderson told IndieWire, “In my case it’s a little bit of a weird thing. 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.’ They set this story aside for me because I was friends with them. Lindsay kind of handed the torch to Luke, Dahl’s grandson.”
Anderson went on to say, “So I had this waiting for me. But I really couldn’t figure out the approach. I knew what I liked in the story was the writing of it, Dahl’s words. I couldn’t find the answer, and then suddenly I did. 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.”
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The Grand Budapest Hoteldirector continued, “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.”
Variety noted thatHenry Sugaris likely going to be similar to Anderson’s 2007 short filmHotel Chevalier, a 13-minute prologue to the director’s feature-length filmThe Darjeeling Limited, which starred Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman.
Anderson added, “It’s not quite the choice between a full-fledged cinema release and a streaming release because you would never distribute a short film like that and distribute it in cinemas. They’d have to sell cheaper tickets or do a double feature… I had only a good experience with Netflix, butI’m very happy to be putting ‘Asteroid City’ in cinemas. Focus and Universal are doing it the real cinema way. That’s the way I really want my movies to be shown.”
Netflix purchased the Roald Dahl Story Company back in September of 2021.
Anderson’s latest film,Asteroid City, arrives in theaters on July 16th, whileHenry Sugaris expected to release on Netflix sometime in the fall.
