Two years after Asteroid City, get ready for another summer of Wes Anderson. Focus Features announced today that the director’s latest feature, and first since being crowned an Oscar winner, The Phoenician Scheme, will be arriving in limited release beginning May 30, 2025 before going wide on June 6. This release strategy seems the director and starry cast are preparing for a Cannes Film Festival debut.
Telling the story of a family and a family business, the film, co-written by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola, stars Benicio del Toro as Zsa-zsa Korda, one of the richest men in Europe; Mia Threapleton as Sister Liesl, his daughter and a nun; Michael Cera as Bjorn Lund, their tutor. Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Riz Ahmed, Mathieu Amalric, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Richard Ayoade, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, and Benedict Cumberbatch are also among the ensemble.
Having shot all of his live-action features, along with his recent Oscar-winning The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Robert Yeoman took a break from his Anderson collaborations. Stepping in as director of photography, as he did for the Coens when Roger Deakins wasn’t available for Inside Llewyn Davis, is Bruno Delbonnel, who also shot Amélie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Across the Universe, and The Tragedy of Macbeth. It won’t be the first time the cinematographer has worked with Wes Anderson, as he shot his H&M holiday ad “Come Together” and even briefly appeared in The French Dispatch.