Asteroid City

Asteroid City is a 2023 American comedy-drama film written, directed, and produced by Wes Anderson, from a story he wrote with Roman Coppola. It features an ensemble cast, including Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Steve Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Tony Revolori, Jake Ryan and Jeff Goldblum. Its metatextual plot simultaneously depicts the events of a Junior Stargazer convention in a retrofuturistic version of 1955, staged as a play, and the creation of the play. It is Anderson's homage to popular memory and mythology about extraterrestrials and UFOs witnessed in the Southwestern desert in close proximity to atomic test sites during the postwar period of the American 20th century.
The project was announced in September 2020 as an untitled romance film, with Anderson writing, producing and directing, alongside Jeremy Dawson of American Empirical Pictures and Steven Rales of Indian Paintbrush. In February 2021, it was described as being about a "group of brainy teenagers". Originally set for Rome, filming took place in Spain between August and October 2021, with cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman. Several sets in Chinchón, resembling a desert landscape and a mock train station, were used. Post-production included editor Barney Pilling and a score composed by frequent Anderson composer Alexandre Desplat, featuring country and western songs from many artists. The official title was revealed in October 2021 at the BFI London Film Festival.
Asteroid City premiered at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2023, where it competed for the Palme d'Or. It began a limited theatrical release through Focus Features in the United States on June 16, 2023, expanding to a wide release a week later. It grossed $53 million worldwide on a $25 million budget and received generally positive reviews.
Plot
In a retro-futuristic version of the 1950s, a television host introduces a live production of a documentary about the creation and production of Asteroid City, a fictional play within the TV show's setting by the fictional famed playwright Conrad Earp. In the play, a youth astronomy convention is held in the fictional desert town of Asteroid City. The play's events are depicted in widescreen and stylized color, while the television special is seen in black-and-white Academy ratio.
In the play, war photojournalist Augie Steenbeck arrives early to the Junior Stargazer convention with Woodrow, his intellectual teenage son, and his three younger daughters. When their car breaks down, Augie phones his father-in-law, Stanley, asking his help. Stanley, who dislikes his son-in-law, persuades him to tell the children about their mother's recent death, which Augie had concealed. Augie and Woodrow meet Midge Campbell, a famous but world-weary actress, and her daughter Dinah, who, like Woodrow, will be honored at the convention. Augie and Midge, and Woodrow and Dinah, gradually fall in love throughout the play. The other convention participants arrive: five-star General Grif Gibson, astronomer Dr. Hickenlooper, three additional teenaged honorees (Ricky, Clifford, and Shelly) and their parents (J.J., Roger, and Sandy), a busload of elementary-school children chaperoned by young teacher June Douglas, and a cowboy band led by singer Montana. A local motel provides everyone's accommodations.
Gibson welcomes the attendees at the Asteroid City crater where the teenagers are to receive awards for various inventions. A UFO suddenly appears above the crater; an alien emerges and steals a fragment of the meteorite that created the crater. Augie photographs the alien. General Gibson, with instructions from the president, places the town under military quarantine, and everyone is subjected to medical and psychiatric examinations. Meanwhile, a romance blossoms between Montana and June, who assure the students that the alien is likely peaceful. The Stargazer honorees use Dr. Hickenlooper's equipment to attempt to contact the alien. Using a guarded pay phone, Ricky calls his school newspaper to relay the quarantine details and cover-up to the outside world.
The Asteroid City events become national news. A furious General Gibson is about to end the quarantine when the UFO reappears and the alien returns the meteorite fragment. When Gibson reinstates the quarantine, the children, scientists, and parents revolt, using the honorees' inventions to overpower the military.
The play's creation is interspersed between the play. Some time after Conrad Earp started writing, he meets with actor Jones Hall, who performs an audition in Earp's home and is immediately cast. During the same interaction, Earp and Hall kiss, establishing their relationship as lovers. Earp writes the play with help from a local acting school and recruits most cast members from it, including Mercedes Ford, a temperamental yet talented actress who plays Midge.
During the recorded performance of the play, Hall, who plays Augie, confronts the play's director Schubert Green, saying he "still doesn't understand the play", and asks Green if he is "doing him right". Green tells Hall to keep playing Augie the same way despite being uncertain, and that he is doing him right. After that interaction, while taking a smoke break on a balcony, Hall runs into the actress who was cast to play Augie's wife before her only scene was cut. She recites the deleted scene's text to him.
Six months into the play's run, Conrad Earp dies in an automobile accident. In the play's epilogue, Augie and his family are the last to leave Asteroid City after General Gibson lifts the quarantine. Augie's daughters bury their mother's ashes in the desert, Woodrow wins the fellowship funding, and Midge leaves Augie her mailing address. Augie and his family quietly drive away.
Cast
Bill Murray was cast as the motel manager, but had to drop out of the role due to being infected with COVID-19. However, after his recovery, he arrived at the film set in Spain, and while Anderson could not add another role to the film, he gave Murray the role of Jock Larking, which was an additional character created for a promotional short film.
Production
In September 2020, it was reported Wes Anderson would write and direct a romance film, which he would produce with Jeremy Dawson of American Empirical Pictures and Steven Rales of Indian Paintbrush. By February 2021, Michael Cera and Jeff Goldblum entered negotiations to star; the film was then described as being about a "group of brainy teenagers". Tilda Swinton was the first person to officially join the cast, in June 2021. In May 2023, Anderson talked about how the COVID-19 pandemic inspired the film and its story, saying, "I don't think there would be a quarantine in the story if we weren't experiencing it. It wasn't deliberate...Writing is the most improvisational part of the whole process. It relies on having nothing."
Principal photography, originally planned for Rome, took place in Spain between August and October 2021, with COVID-19 safety precautions in place. Several sets were built in Chinchón, including a vast diorama resembling a desert landscape with the eponymous town of Asteroid City, including its train station, a diner, a garage, and an observatory. Cast member Fisher Stevens said the film would include "the wildest cast since The Bridge on the River Kwai" and that the cast and crew "were all bubbled together in a hotel, which was an old monastery".
Scarlett Johansson was paid $4,131 a week for her two months of work.
The film's title was revealed by Bill Murray to be Asteroid City at the BFI London Film Festival in October 2021. Alexandre Desplat composed the score, his sixth collaboration with Anderson. Costume design was by multiple Academy Award winner Milena Canonero. In July 2022, it was announced that Focus Features would distribute the film, reuniting them with Anderson after Moonrise Kingdom (2012). It was also revealed that Murray would not be in the film as initially reported, as a result of contracting COVID-19 before he could shoot his scenes.
Music
Marketing
A teaser poster for Asteroid City was released on March 28, 2023. The first trailer was released the following day, which featured a rendition of Johnny Duncan's 1957 song "Last Train to San Fernando". Jazz Monroe of Pitchfork called the trailer "extremely Andersonian", while Charles Pulliam-Moore of The Verge wrote that the film "looks and feels exactly how you'd think a Wes Anderson coming-of-age movie about stargazing in the desert would".
Release
Asteroid City premiered at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2023. It was given a limited theatrical release in New York City and Los Angeles in the United States on June 16, 2023, expanding to a wide release on June 23, 2023. It had an earlier premiere in Sweden and a limited number of other countries on June 9, 2023.
Home media
Asteroid City was released digitally on July 11, 2023, two and a half weeks after its theatrical premiere. A DVD and Blu-ray were released on August 15, 2023. It began streaming on Peacock on August 11, 2023.
MPA rating
In the United States, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) initially gave the film an R-rating "for brief graphic nudity". Focus Features successfully appealed the decision, and the film was re-rated PG-13 "for brief graphic nudity, smoking, and some suggestive material".
Reception
Box office
Asteroid City grossed $28.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $25.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $53.6 million.
In its limited opening weekend, it made $853,382 from six theaters, finishing in 10th. Its per-venue average of $142,230 was the best total since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the largest since La La Land in 2016. Expanding to 1,675 theaters in its second weekend, it was projected to gross $7–8 million. It made $3.8 million on its first day of wide release, including $1.1 million from Thursday night previews. It went on to make $9 million, finishing sixth. It also had the highest opening for a Wes Anderson film in wide release. Asteroid City completed its theatrical run in the United States and Canada on September 7, 2023.
Critical response
Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, and PostTrak reported 78% of filmgoers gave it a positive score, with 51% saying they would definitely recommend it.
In The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw called Asteroid City "terrifically entertaining and lightly sophisticated" and wrote, "The movie rattles cleverly and exhilaratingly along, adroitly absorbing the implications of pathos and loneliness without allowing itself to slow down. It is tempting to consider this savant blankness as some kind of symptom, but I really don't think so: it is the expression of style. And what style it is". John Nugent of Empire commended the film's unique visual and narrative style, writing, "[Anderson] remains cinema's most astonishing stylist, the rigour and detail in every frame never better", but warned, "It is occasionally a bit unfocused, and always a bit indulgent. If you don't like The Wes Anderson Film, you won't like this. But we others must hope he keeps making it."
In his review for Vulture, Bilge Ebiri wrote "To the casual observer, Wes Anderson might seem like someone who either refuses to read his own press or has bought into his press to an absurd degree", alluding to criticism of Anderson's filmmaking style, but later argued, "There's a point to all this indulgence. Anderson's obsessively constructed dioramas explore the very human need to organize, quantify, and control our lives in the face of the unexpected and the uncertain [...] Asteroid City might be the purest expression of this dynamic because it's about the unknown in all its forms." Owen Gleiberman of Variety found the film similar to the "fussy, top-heavy, narratively batty yet stretched-thin concoctions" he saw in The Darjeeling Limited and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and concluded "Asteroid City looks smashing, but as a movie it's for Anderson die-hards only, and maybe not even too many of them."
In his review for The New Yorker, Anthony Lane highlighted Johansson's performance as what "cracks the movie's ordered surface" and wrote "Even if you regard the latest movie as a box of tricks, you have to admire the nerve with which Johansson, as Midge, delves into that box and plucks out scraps of coolly agonized wit. More deftly than anyone else, she traffics in the to-and-fro between the real and the imagined". Adam Mullins-Khatib of the Chicago Reader hailed the film as "a true achievement from one of America's most unique cinematic voices", complimenting Anderson's direction and screenplay, as well as the cast's performances.
Accolades
References
External links
2023 romantic comedy-drama films
2023 science fiction films
2023 films
2020s American films
2020s English-language films
2020s science fiction comedy-drama films
Alien visitations in films
American romantic comedy-drama films
American science fiction comedy-drama films
American science fiction romance films
Films about actors
Films directed by Wes Anderson
Films impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic
Films partially in color
Films produced by Wes Anderson
Films scored by Alexandre Desplat
Films set in 1955
Films set in Arizona
Films shot in Chinchón
Films with screenplays by Wes Anderson
Focus Features films
Indian Paintbrush (company) films
Metafictional works