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CinemaCon: Focus Features Unveils Trailers for Upcoming Oscar Contenders
During the Universal presentation at CinemaCon, Focus Features provided a sneak peek into its anticipated awards contenders, showcasing the initial trailers for Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia.
Focus Features’ chair, Peter Kujawski, expressed the company’s enthusiasm for collaborating with innovative filmmakers who create meaningful connections with audiences. He emphasized the importance of crafting films that resonate within the shared environment of theaters before unveiling the new trailers.
The Phoenician Scheme, slated for a May 30 release following a likely premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, marks Anderson’s return with a familiar cast. It features lead actor Benicio del Toro alongside Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Wright, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Mathieu Amalric, and Richard Ayoade. New faces in this installment include Mia Threapleton, daughter of Kate Winslet, and Michael Cera.
While the trailer remains unreleased to the public, reports suggest it commences with del Toro portraying Zsa-zsa Korda, an affluent European who survives a plane crash. Threapleton plays the role of Korda’s estranged daughter, a nun, while Cera adopts an eccentric accent as her tutor. The plot appears to follow their attempts to outsmart various factions, including a duo played by Cranston and Hanks, who share a similar sartorial style. This film seems to introduce a more intense narrative compared to Anderson’s prior works but still maintains his signature aesthetic, utilizing a 4:3 aspect ratio and distinctive staging.
In a similar vein, Bugonia distinctly showcases the unique storytelling of Lanthimos. The film stars Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone, with the teaser focusing on Plemons’s character, who takes extreme measures by kidnapping his CEO, believing she may be an extraterrestrial.
“It all starts with something magnificent: a flower and a honey bee,” Plemons narrates in the teaser. “The workers gather pollen for the queen. The bees are dying as the workers desert the queen. The colony wastes away.”
Notably, Stone famously shaved her head for this role, a decision that is prominently featured in the trailer.
Bugonia is scheduled to hit theaters on November 7.
As focus remained on the Universal panel, anticipation grew that Focus Features might reveal additional footage from its other potential awards contenders, including Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, featuring Jesse Buckley and Paul Mescal, as well as Daniel Day-Lewis’s return to acting in Anemone, directed by his son, Ronan Day-Lewis. However, apart from a brief reference by Kujawski, no further details about these projects were presented to theater owners.
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www.goldderby.com