ASTEROID CITY (2023): Wes Anderson’s New Film Positions Itself for a June 2023 Release

Wes Anderson’s Latest Set for a June 2023 Release

Wes Anderson‘s new film, Asteroid City, has positioned itself as a potential specialty box-office smash with a planned summer 2023 release.

When it comes to specialty box-office hits, Wes Anderson films are common staples in terms of being movies that open incredibly strong in their initial theatrical runs. June couldn’t be a better time for Focus Features to release Asteroid City, Anderson’s most recent picture. When Moonrise Kingdom launched in 2012 around the same time frame, more or less, it resulted in one of the quirky director’s biggest hits grossing over $45 million domestically. This new film could be even bigger. It will release on June 16, 2023 in a limited run until it expands wide on June 23rd.

Warner Bros.’s big potential blockbuster, The Flash, will be opening on June 16th as well but that picture will be opening extremely wide in terms of its theater count. That will make Anderson’s film the specialty box-office alternative to going with the flock that will be heading to that superhero movie.

Set in the 1950’s, Asteroid City, like most of Anderson’s movies, features an all-star cast. Those players include Tom Hanks, Margot Robbie, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, Adrien Brody, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum and Rita Wilson, to name a few. Tom Hanks is new to Wes Anderson movies and is probably the most valuable player here while Margot Robbie (fresh off a turn in the upcoming Babylon) will likely have a showy featured role in the upcoming Anderson film. Swinton, Norton and Brody are Anderson regulars and should have supporting parts.

This forthcoming picture has the potential to be an existential masterpiece from the acclaimed filmmaker. It is set in a fictionalized American town during a junior science competition. Students and parents from all over the United States arrive and all hell will break loose in true Wes Anderson fashion.

Anderson’s last film, The French Dispatch, was one of the best movies of 2021 and despite its huge opening weekend at the specialty box-office, it faltered a bit in a wider release. With the dedication of Focus Features’ marketing team, such a fate will hopefully not be in store for Asteroid City.

A “specialty release” is a picture which gets a platform release that helps let word of mouth build before the movie goes into a wider release. That word of mouth thus translates into a bigger audience as the movie rolls out into more theaters. It is a strategy that is usually associated with films which are also critically well-received. Asteroid City is poised to be Anderson’s most successful project to date and is perfectly timed to play in theaters all summer long in 2023.

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