While I had thought, and maybe hoped, that the Coens might do a sneak attack on the awards season and do a last minute run with "Hail, Caesar!," it looks like that won’t be happening. Thankfully, the movie is a couple of months away from release, and it has lined up an international red carpet premiere.
READ MORE: The Films Of The Coen Brothers: A Retrospective
Organizers at the Berlin International Film Festival have announced this morning that "Hail, Caesar!" will open the festival on February 11th. That’s nearly a full week after the picture will have already opened in the U.S. on February 5th, so the fest won’t be able to claim World Premiere status with the flick, but it will mark the directors third time at Berlin, and they’ve certainly got some major star power to bring with them. Read the full press release below.
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On 11 February 2016, Hail, Caesar! by Academy Award winning director duo Joel and Ethan Coen will open the 66th Berlin International Film Festival.
Hail, Caesar! takes place during the latter years of Hollywood’s Golden Age, during the studio system’s heyday, and features an all-star cast including Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Channing Tatum. The comedy follows a single day in the life of a studio fixer who is presented with plenty of problems to fix.
The renowned directors Joel and Ethan Coen have been a prominent fixture in international cinema for more than 30 years. After their sensational debut Blood Simple (1984), the Coen Brothers have enjoyed international successes with audiences and critics alike for films such as Fargo (1996, Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay), No Country for Old Men (2007, three Academy Awards in the categories Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film and Best Director), Burn After Reading (2008), A Serious Man (2009) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013).
In 1998, the Coen Brothers presented their brilliant comedy The Big Lebowski in the Berlinale Competition programme, and their dramatic western True Grit opened the 61st Berlin International Film Festival in 2011.
“It’s wonderful that Joel and Ethan Coen are once again opening the Berlinale. Their humour, unique characters and fantastic narrative skill are guaranteed to thrill the audience. Hail, Caesar! is the perfect start for the 2016 Berlinale,” says Festival Director Dieter Kosslick.
Hail, Caesar! is produced by Joel and Ethan Coen, and Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, through Mike Zoss Production