Get your first look at Rules Don’t Apply, Warren Beatty’s Howard Hughes film

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

Warren Beatty has been absent from the world of film for so long that I had to turn to IMdB in order to refresh my memory on his last feature film. That would be Peter Chelsom's TOWN & COUNTRY if you're in the same boat as I am. Warren Beatty will soon be making his return to theaters in the upcoming RULES DON'T APPLY, Beatty's long awaited Howard Hughes project which he produced, wrote, directed, and starred in. Entertainment Weekly got the first look at RULES DON'T APPLY which, contrary to speculation, Warren Beatty says is NOT a Howard Hughes biopic.

RULES DON'T APPLY stars Lily Collins (MIRROR, MIRROR) as Marla Mabrey, "a small-town beauty queen and devout Baptist who arrives in Hollywood in the late ‘50s as an aspiring actress under contract to Hughes." Upon arriving at the airport he meets Frank Forbes (Alden Ehrenreich), her personal driver who is also new to the job and comes from a religiously conservative background. The two young lovers soon find that "their instant attraction not only tests their moral beliefs, but also goes against Hughes’ cardinal rule: No employee is allowed to have an intimate relationship with a contract actress. Needless to say, the idiosyncratic Hughes is not a man used to being defied."

Warren Beatty says that RULES DON'T APPLY is a story about "a young man and a young woman who come to Hollywood, both of whom are affected by American Protestant, American Puritan morality on the brink of the sexual revolution and the rise of feminism that was to take place in the early ’60s." Although the brief synopsis doesn't hint at it, Beatty described RULES DON'T APPLY as a “dramedy," before adding "maybe it’s a little bit more of a comedy. It has some good laughs in it.” In addition to Warren Beatty, Lily Collins, and Alden Ehrenreich, RULES DON'T APPLY also stars Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin, Haley Bennett, Candice Bergen, Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, Steve Coogan, Taissa Farmiga, Ed Harris, Megan Hilty, Oliver Platt, and Martin Sheen.

RULES DON'T APPLY is set to hit theaters on November 11, 2016.