This fall, quirky auteur Wes Anderson follows up this year’s Asteroid City with another project slated to stream on Netflix in the fall. The movie is The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and surprisingly, it’s only a short film. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar clocks in at 39 minutes and is scheduled to premiere on the streaming service on September 27. Prior to its premiere on the content platform, Netflix is also proud to announce that the Wes Anderson short will also be making its debut at the Venice Film Festival.
The official logline for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar from Netflix reads,
“A beloved Roald Dahl story about a rich man who learns about a guru who can see without using his eyes and then sets out to master the skill in order to cheat at gambling.” In typical Wes Anderson fashion, the filmmaker has assembled an all-star cast for his project. The film stars an impressive ensemble of actors, including such names as Ralph Fiennes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, Richard Ayoade, Rupert Friend, and Asa Jennings. Netflix has just released a specialty poster of the short for the Venice Film Festival.
The script for the film was written by Anderson in addition to directing it. Anderson is also credited as a producer on the movie alongside Steven Rales and Jeremy Dawson. The co-producers on the project include Octavia Peissel, John Peet, and Alice Dawson.
Anderson previously spoke to IndieWire about the details behind the film, “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.” He 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.”