Wes Anderson is returning to the world of Roald Dahl in the first The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar poster. The movie primarily acts as an adaptation of the story of the same name from Dahl’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, centering on a wealthy man with an affinity for gambling who looks to master a guru’s meditative skill to see without his eyes in the hopes of cheating. The movie acts as the second Dahl adaptation written and directed by Anderson after Fantastic Mr. Fox, which scored Oscar nominations for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score, though lost both to Up.
Ahead of the short movie’s Venice International Film Festival premiere, Netflix has revealed the first The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar poster.
The poster, as seen above, offers the first look at Benedict Cumberbatch as the eponymous wealthy gambler, showing him floating slightly above the ground. In addition, the short movie’s Netflix premiere date has been revealed for September 27, coming just over three weeks after its September 1 festival premiere.
Everything We Know About The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
In addition to Cumberbatch as Henry Sugar, Anderson has assembled a formidable cast for the movie with The Green Knight‘s Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, Rupert Friend, Richard Ayoade and Ralph Fiennes as Dahl himself. Compared to most of his productions, namely the recent Asteroid City, the ensemble proves to be one of the smaller rosters for an Anderson movie. Though given it’s a short film instead of a feature-length movie, this smaller cast does generally make more sense.
At the time of writing, it remains unclear if the movie will adapt all seven stories from Dahl’s collection. Patel and Ayoade are credited as playing doctors Chatterjee and Marshall, indicating that Kingsley’s Imdad Khan will be the strange patient in the novel from whom Henry looks to learn the unique form of meditation. That said, given the character died prior to Sugar meeting him, it seems likely his appearance will come in the form of flashbacks from the detailed journal he kept that Henry would later get his hands on.
With The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar said to be a 37-minute short movie, though, it seems likely that the other stories will not find their way to the screen, unless Fiennes’ casting as Dahl results in the autobiographical stories from the collection being adapted. However, should the project prove successful for Anderson and Netflix, and the streamer acquiring the Roald Dahl Story Company for various adaptations, the duo could reunite to adapt the remaining stories at some point in the future.
