Joaquin Phoenix Ages From Young Boy To Old Man In Beau Is Afraid Poster

The brand-new poster for Beau is Afraid shows Joaquin Phoenix at four different ages. The film, which is the latest from Hereditary and Midsommar director Ari Aster, is due in theaters this April. Originally titled Disappointment Blvd., Beau is Afraid is described as a surrealist horror film set in an alternate present. The film, which continues Aster’s directorial habit of helming films dealing with the fallout of grief, will follow Phoenix as a man who returns home after the death of his mother, only to face off against a bizarre supernatural force that may end up lasting decades.

Today on their official Twitter account, A24 released a brand-new poster for Beau is Afraid. The new poster ramps up on their previous design, which only showed a young version of Phoenix’s character in front of a blue background. This time, four different versions of the actor are gathered together at four vastly different ages, from a young boy to an old man, with the figure that represents the actor at his current age looking bloody and beat up. The overall eerie effect is accentuated by the fact that the Twitter post the company shared bears the caption “you’ve been waiting a lifetime.” Check out the full-size poster below:

Everything We Know About Beau is Afraid

In addition to Joker Oscar winner Phoenix on board, the rest of the cast is stacked with intriguing performers. This includes three-time Tony winners Nathan Lane and Patti LuPone, The Office and Only Murders in the Building star Amy Ryan, Christopher Guest comedy stalwart Parker Posey, The Many Saints of Newark‘s Michael Gandolfini, and The Watcher‘s Richard Kind. The film also features Daybreak‘s Armen Nahapetian as young Beau.

Aster, who also wrote the script, shot the film in the Montreal suburb of Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville over the course of several months in 2021. He initially promised that his follow-up to his previous film – the 2019 cult thriller Midsommar starring future MCU star Florence Pugh – would be a four-hour nightmare. Whether he still intends to stick to that run time has not been officially confirmed.

A much closer look at the mechanics of the movie will likely be revealed soon, as along with the poster release A24 made the announcement that an official trailer for the film is coming next week. Until then, details as to the plot of Beau is Afraid are still thin on the ground. However, the poster raises intriguing questions as to whether the film will genuinely span multiple decades or instead feature Beau slipping backward and forward through time in a manner similar to the classic Kurt Vonnegut novel Slaughterhouse-Five.