Ari Aster made his directorial debut with his 2018 horror movie, Hereditary, starring award-winning Toni Collette as a grieving mother trying to protect her family after a devastating loss. The film grossed over $80 million on a $10 million budget, becoming A24’s highest-grossing film (beating Lady Bird at $78.5 million) until it was surpassed by Everything Everywhere All At Once in 2022.

Aster’s second film, a folk horror called Midsommar, came out in 2019 starring Florence Pugh as the lead protagonist. The film follows Dani (Pugh), her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor), and a group of his friends from college as they travel to Sweden to study a rare midsummer celebration that only occurs once every 90 years within an isolated commune. Midsommar had a worldwide gross of $48 million and had a generally positive audience reception, despite the polarizing nature of the film.

When Ari Aster announced his next film, Beau Is Afraid, in 2021, it was originally titled Disappointment Blvd. Fans of his previous horror films were ecstatic to hear that he was collaborating with Joaquin Phoenix and anticipated an even more terrifying experience. However, Aster pivoted away from direct “horror” and instead created a dark, anxiety-riddled comedy, which led to some disappointment and confusion from initial movie-goers. Despite generally positive reviews, Beau Is Afraid was only able to bring in $11.5 million at the box office, resulting in a $35 million loss. Until Civil War, Beau Is Afraid held the title of the “most expensive” film ever to be produced by A24 with a budget of $35 million.

Now, with his fourth film in the works, fans are foaming at the mouth waiting for any information they can find about what Aster will do next. This article will tell you everything we know about Eddington.

Does ‘Eddington’ Have a Release Date?

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Unfortunately, there hasn’t been an official release date established by Ari Aster or A24 yet. Filming began in New Mexico on March 11, 2024, and is set to finish on May 17, so shortly after that, post-production will commence and there should be a more definitive timeline as far as when we can expect Eddington to be released. If Aster follows the rough timeline he has used for his previous three films, we might be looking at a release date in early 2025.

Will ‘Eddington’ Be in Theaters or Streaming?

Eddington will without a doubt have a theatrical release. If we follow the theatrical release schedule of Ari Aster’s previous three films, Eddington will likely have a limited theatrical release initially, followed by a wide release later that month. Following its theatrical run, Eddington will most likely have a digital release within 2 to 3 months. Thanks to a deal between A24 and Warner Bros. Discovery, Eddington will eventually be available to stream on the Max streaming service, alongside other recent movies from the indie giant.

What Will ‘Eddington’ Be About?

The plot for Eddington has been kept mostly under wraps aside from the fact that it’s based on a “small-town New Mexico sheriff with higher aspirations.” However, an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit with director Ari Aster from around 4 years ago gave a little more insight about the upcoming film.

“There was a period of time when I thought “Midsommar” would be the debut feature, and there was a period when I thought another script called “Eddington” might be the first movie. For like five years, I was trying to get that Western-noir dark ensemble comedy going. That won’t be the next one, by the way, though I do still want to make it very badly… Although it’s sort of a – I don’t know if you’d call it a revisionist Western. It’s contemporary; one foot is in the western and one foot is even more heavily in the noir genre. So it’s like a film noir ensemble western dark comedy.”

Aster, who grew up in New Mexico, apparently had a script for Eddington in his back pocket along with Midsommar when he decided to make Hereditary. According to another comment in his AMA, he said that Eddington is set in a fictional copper mining town in New Mexico that takes place during the pandemic. According to a rumor,

“the film tackles a couple (Lindsay and Marc) driving through New Mexico, on their way to Los Angeles, who run out of gas just outside the small town of Eddington, New Mexico. Lindsay and Marc decide to enter the town for help. They are, at first, greeted very warmly, but, as nightfall comes, the picturesque setting soon turns into a nightmare.”

Is There a Trailer for ‘Eddington’?

Not yet, a trailer won’t be released until the film is at the very least in post-production after filming wraps on May 17, 2024. According to the filming timeline for Aster’s Midsommar, principal photography began on July 30, 2018, and wrapped in October that year. The first official trailer for Midsommar was released on March 5, 2019, just 4 months before the film’s July release. Given that time frame, we can only hope to see a trailer sometime in October this year.

Who Stars in ‘Eddington’?

Ari Aster has described this movie as an “ensemble” film, and he wasn’t exaggerating. The cast of Eddington has no lack of star power to brag about. For starters, Joaquin Phoenix was one of the first cast members to be confirmed to be involved in Eddington, making this his second collaboration in a row with Ari Aster following Beau Is Afraid. Phoenix has displayed a wide range of acting abilities in recent years, including the titular character in both Joker and Ridley Scott’s Napoleon. The Oscar-winning actor started his career appearing in various television shows and TV movies in the 80s before his first major role in the 1989 film Parenthood. Since then, he’s portrayed Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, Commodus in Gladiator (Phoenix’s first Ridley Scott film), Max California in 9MM, and has worked with M. Night Shyamalan on two films, Signs and The Village. He even voiced Kenai in the 2003 Disney movie Brother Bear. Talk about range!

Joining Phoenix in the cast is Emma Stone, who just recently won her second Oscar for her performance in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things. Since Easy A, Stone has also expanded her acting range to include Disney’s live-action Cruella, The Help, Crazy, Stupid Love, and received her first Oscar for her performance in La La Land. Most recently, she starred in the comedy-drama television series The Curse alongside Nathan for You’s Nathan Fielder. In addition to Eddington, she currently has two other upcoming projects that she is working on, a sequel to Cruella, and a comedy-drama film called Kinds of Kindness, starring alongside Jesse Plemmons and Willem Dafoe. This will mark Stone's second collaboration with Phoenix after Irrational Man in 2015.

Pedro Pascal, recently dubbed “the internet’s daddy” after his performances in The Mandalorian and HBO’s The Last of Us, is also in the cast of Eddington as a character named Ted Garcia. As of now, he is the only cast member to have a character name attached to him in the upcoming film. Pascal also starred as the villain in Wonder Woman 1984, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Drive-Away Dolls, and The Uninvited. Including Eddington, he has several major projects coming up, including Gladiator 2, the second season of The Last of Us, and the latest reboot of The Fantastic Four as Reed Richards, a.k.a. Mister Fantastic.

In addition to the already stacked cast, Austin Butler, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal in the 2022 biopic Elvis, joined the cast of Eddington in March 2024, taking over a role that was previously taken by Christopher Abbott (Poor Things) due to scheduling conflicts on Abbot’s end. In addition to his headliner role as Elvis Presley, Butler also appeared in The Dead Don’t Die, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, and most recently, Masters of the Air, The Bikeriders, and Dune: Part 2. But wait, that’s not the entire cast yet! Eddington cast members also include Luke Grimes (Yellowstone), Deirdre O’Connell (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Michael Ward (The Beautiful Game), Clifton Collins Jr. (The Bricklayer), William Belleau (Killers of the Flower Moon), and Amélie Hoeferle (Night Swim).

Who Is Making ‘Eddington’?

Eddington is written, directed, and produced by Ari Aster, who has been making splashes in the “elevated horror” community with his back-to-back hits like Hereditary, Midsommar, and Beau Is Afraid. Although Beau wasn’t as big of a success as Aster’s first two movies, the film has become somewhat of an instant cult classic that continues to grow its fanbase daily. Eddington will be Ari Aster’s fourth collaboration with A24, the production company behind movies like Everything Everywhere All At Once, Lady Bird, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Talk to Me, and many more.

Co-producing with Aster is Lars Knudsen, who worked with Ari Aster previously on Hereditary and also produced Robert Eggers’ A24 folk horror, The VVitch. Knudsen and Aster also created their own production company, Square Peg, after working together on Hereditary. Since then, Square Peg has produced Midsommar, Resurrection, The Northman, Beau Is Afraid, Dream Scenario, and Sasquatch Sunset. Eddington will be the seventh film produced by Square Peg and the third film co-produced by both Square Peg and A24.

Darius Khondji will serve as the cinematographer for Eddington, and has worked with many notable directors in the past, including David Fincher (Se7en), Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris), Danny Boyle (The Beach), Bong Joon-ho (Mickey 17), Wes Anderson (Castello Cavalcanti), Jonathan Glazer (Strasbourg 1518), brothers Joshua Safdie and Benjamin Safdie (Uncut Gems), and James Gray (Armageddon Time). Khondji has been nominated for the Academy Awards twice, once for the 1997 film, Evita, and again in 2023 for Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths.

Stay tuned here for updates on trailers and the release date for Eddington!