Get your first look at director Wes Anderson’s upcoming film, The Phoenician Scheme.
The Academy Award winner behind Asteroid City and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar returns with a tale of international intrigue, family reunions, and nuns with knives. Benicio del Toro leads The Phoenician Scheme as Zsa-zsa Korda, one of the richest men in Europe (with a penchant for getting into plane crashes).
According to The Phoenician Scheme‘s first trailer, Zsa-zsa has nine sons and one daughter, a nun named Liesel (Mia Threapleton). In his first meeting with Liesl in six years, he informs her he’s made her the sole heir to his estate, and that she may just come into all that money sooner rather than later.
“I have my reasons,” Zsa-zsa tells a skeptical Liesl.
“Which are what?” she asks.
“My reasons? I’m not saying,” Zsa-zsa counters. “I’m saying I’m not saying.”
The trailer is full of such charmingly recursive dialogue, as well as other visual Anderson trademarks like painstaking symmetry, tracking shots, and intricately crafted sets. It also reveals Korda’s master plan: Korda Land and Sea Phoenician Infrastructure Scheme, the most important project of Zsa-zsa’s lifetime.
Zsa-zsa will face opposition from other industry heads, so he’s bringing Liesl and their tutor Bjorn (Michael Cera) along on the journey to bring his plan to fruition. What follows promises to be a madcap tale of nightclub robberies, hand grenades, and Tom Hanks sinking three-point shots.
In addition to del Toro, Threapleton, and Cera, The Phoenician Scheme features a sprawling all-star cast, many of whom are returning Anderson players. They are: Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Richard Ayoade, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, and Hope Davis.
The Phoenician Scheme hits theaters May 30.
