If you woke up and fired up the ol’ Film Twitter machine to see what the Discourse is today, then you might have noticed that everyone was freaking out over the idea that Wes Anderson’s upcoming “The French Dispatch” is going super-sized, eclipsing the run-time of Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” and clocking in well over 4 hours. Well, that’s not the case, but there are still some interesting things to discuss about Anderson’s upcoming film.
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As reported by various folks on Twitter, IMDB posted a bit about the run-time for “The French Dispatch,” claiming the film will be two parts, with a combined length of 4 hours, with a “director’s cut” length set as 325 minutes (aka almost five-and-a-half-hours). Obviously, this raised some red flags, as the news was “broken” by IMDB, which is notoriously wrong about such things and as one astute reader pointed out, the two-part runtimes and director’s cut runtime matched exactly with the two-part “Nymphomaniac” run times, so it looks like an error occurred). Also, with the film not scheduled to premiere anytime soon (more on that in a second), it’s far too soon to know the exact run-time of “The French Dispatch.” Alas, it hit Twitter, and Twitter folks do what Twitter folks do.
Moreover, we confirmed through a Fox Searchlight spokesperson that the IMDB information is, indeed, wrong. So, those hoping for a 4-hour Wes Anderson epic are out of luck. It’s likely going to be a regular-length movie. Update: Reps for Wes Anderson tell us “The French Dispatch” is about one hour and 45 minutes, with credits.
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According to a new Variety report, “The French Dispatch” has a $25 million budget and is to premiere at one of the major European festivals and comes out later this year. That tracks, and perhaps points to a Cannes premiere in May.
Over on Amazon France, there is a Faber & Faber hardcover version of the screenplay that is set to be released this spring. And in the description of the book, there’s our first real synopsis for the film, as well as a hint at when you might see Anderson’s project premiere.
The synopsis reads:
Update: Revealing synopsis from Amazon France has been removed at the behest of Fox Searchlight and in place, the official one is now posted.
“The French Dispatch is the European edition of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun – a factual, weekly report on the subjects of world politics, the arts (high and low), fashion, fancy cuisine/fine drink, and diverse stories of human-interest set in faraway quartiers.
That seems to match all the rumblings that we’ve been hearing about the anthological nature of the film, as well as the various types of characters that the incredible cast will portray. Plus, Anderson himself teased making an anthology film in 2015 before “Isle Of Dogs” came out. The synopsis above suggests a 4 part literary-style film, not unlike the structure of “The Grand Budapest Hotel“: a segment that includes the editorial staff of The French Dispatch newspaper itself, and three sections to depict the three best stories in the magazine (some sections said to be in black and white or even animated).
This probably also explains the oversized cast includes Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, Benicio Del Toro, Jeffrey Wright, Adrien Brody, Léa Seydoux, Tilda Swinton, Mathieu Amalric, Lyna Khoudri, Stephen Park, Elisabeth Moss, Saoirse Ronan, Owen Wilson, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, Jason Schwartzman, Henry Winkler, Bill Murray and dozens more.) But perhaps the most telling part of the Amazon listing? Well, that’s the May 21 release date.
The release date of May 21 perfectly coincides with a certain French film festival that happens every year. That’s right, the timing of the screenplay’s release certainly does hint that “The French Dispatch” will likely premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, which runs from May 12 to May 23.
We are still weeks away from any sort of confirmation about the lineup for Cannes, but “Moonrise Kingdom” already debuted there in 2012 and it’s been a minute since Anderson has been at Cannes (spending recent years at the Berlin Film Festival). We’d even speculate such a film is worthy of opening Cannes, but hey, let’s not get ahead of ourselves yet. Nothing is confirmed (nor should the synopsis be considered “official” yet, to be fair).
Fox Searchlight has yet to formally announce a release date for “The French Dispatch,” but if all this speculation pans out, then we’re hopefully looking at a late-spring, early-summer date for Anderson’s film, though when it hits North American theaters, that’s still unknown at the moment.