Wes Anderson’s "Asteroid City" Gets Streaming Date

Wes Anderson’s latest project "Asteroid City" will make its streaming debut exclusively on the "Peacock" streaming platform on Friday, August 11. 

Marking Anderson’s thematic return to the U.S. in more than a decade, the pic is set in a fictional American desert town circa 1955. It tells of a desert tourist trap that was once the sites of an asteroid landing, which also doubles as the location of an annual camp for “stargazers and space cadets.” 

Anderson penned the screenplay from a story he co-wrote along with frequent collaborator Roman Coppola. The French Dispatch filmmaker produced the project with his regular partners Steven Rales and Jeremy Dawson.

As with all Anderson productions, the cast includes a star-studded squad of high-profile acting talent, including Tom Hanks, Tilda Swinton, and Edward Norton.

The ensemble is rounded out by Jason Schwartzman, Jeffrey Wright, Bryan Cranston, Adrien Brody, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Stephen Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie, Tony Revolori, Jake Ryan, and Jeff Goldblum. 

The movie premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where it earned a six-minute standing ovation. Although it earned $9 million over its opening weekend, the highest-grossing weekend for an Anderson movie, the project received mixed reviews from critics and viewers alike, many of which agree that it features the auteur’s signature dazzling cinematography but is dramatically inert. 

“If the setting of ‘Asteroid City’ feels succulent in that vintage Anderson way, the scenes and events that unfold there do not,” writes Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman in his review. “They add up to what may be the filmmaker’s most hyperactive yet coyly obtuse piece of storytelling. There are only a few main characters, but everyone in the movie seems to be reciting from the same turgidly empty-clever Anderson playbook.”