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Kate Winslet was the original choice for the Nola Rice role in Match Point, so it's very neat that they'll finally be working together more than a decade after that didn't pan out (Winslet reportedly backed out of Match Point due to exhaustion and needing to spend more time with her family - the role, of course, ended up going to Scarlett Johansson).

The whole main cast has now been announced, with Winslet, Jim Belushi, Juno Temple, and Justin Timberlake.

What a bizarre cast

Phase one of the Jimbelushi-aissaince?

Phase one began a while ago - Jim Belushi was in Roman Polanksi's The Ghost Writer, David Simon's Show Me a Hero and Lynch's new/upcoming Twin Peaks episodes.

I liked him in that HBO movie Made Men where he talks about how off-brand Dr Pepper is just as good, only without the medical degree

domino harvey wrote:I liked him in that HBO movie Made Men where he talks about how off-brand Dr Pepper is just as good, only without the medical degree

The Mitch Hedberg version is funnier:

Mr. Pib is just a phony Dr. Pepper, dude didn't even get his degree.

Vittorio Storaro will be collaborating with Allen again on this.

Untitled no more

Starring Juno Temple as Scarlett Johansson and Justin Timberlake as Joaquin Phoenix.

Wonder Wheel is an amusement park / attraction in Coney Island, FYI

The Narrator Returns wrote:Starring Juno Temple as Scarlett Johansson and Justin Timberlake as Joaquin Phoenix.

Applause

bearcuborg wrote:

domino harvey wrote:I liked him in that HBO movie Made Men where he talks about how off-brand Dr Pepper is just as good, only without the medical degree

The Mitch Hedberg version is funnier:

Mr. Pibb is just a phony Dr. Pepper, dude didn't even get his degree.

Granted, Mellow Yellow is also a phony Mountain Dew and Sprite is a phony 7-Up, so who knows? Woody's been hit-or-miss for the last 25 years, so who knows right now on which side this film will fall?

Sprite has totally taken over for 7-Up, thank you very much.

Set for December 1st, limited

Don't really understand why they're going for this, Cafe Society made $45 million worldwide in July-August which is far better than most other films of its size.

How will this compare with Wonderstruck and Wonder Woman?

They must see this as comparable with Midnight in Paris, in which case they want to position it for awards contention and the box office boost that'd come with. And early December means not getting too entangled with either the October awards contenders or the Christmas season awards contenders, which have become the two major phases nowadays. Trying to sneak one in the five-hole.

God, I can't remember the last time an Allen film wasn't out in the summer

As the article says, it was Match Point, which depending on your definition more-or-less began the entire period of "late Allen."

It's just an odd move because a Woody Allen movie is about the only thing you can put out in August that will consistently do okay, it's a great fit for the time of year and it didn't rule out situations like Midnight in Paris or Blue Jasmine where success and acclaim carried through to big prizes down the line.

They'll probably be okay either way, obviously, but at least they're getting a little ahead of it (I've got a bad feeling this year distributors will over correct for last year's "everyone doing Christmas NYC/January Wide" glut of failures and everything will try to be out wide by Christmas)

It's possible that because it wasn't ready (if it wasn't ready) for Cannes, Allen wants it to screen at Toronto or Venice or NYFF before release. Seems like it'd be a perfect choice to either open or close NYFF, in particular, considering the setting. And would go a long way to explaining why it wouldn't be out in the summer.

I've heard some awards chatter about Kate Winslet in this (including from noted awards prognosticator Jim Belushi), so Amazon probably has enough faith in that being a possibility that they don't want to give it a release date that leaves a lot of time for voters to forget about it.

I guess there's also the argument where the whole Cannes premiere thing wasn't doing the movies any favors, as it would inevitably be what happened each year with greater and greater furor where the generally positive or at least tepid critical response is just totally lost to controversy (but any festival booking Allen will have to face that). NYFF announced their opener today CRAZY early, so maybe we could hear more about other possible venues for this pretty soon.

Seems like Storaro will probably get a nod given the benefit of a good awards date, at the least.

More detailed plot summary:

We’re in Coney Island in the 1950s. A lifeguard (Justin Timberlake) tells us a story that just might be filtered through his vivid imagination: a middle-aged carousel operator (James Belushi) and his beleaguered wife (Kate Winslet), who eke out a living on the boardwalk, are visited by his estranged daughter (Juno Temple)—a situation from which layer upon layer of all-too-human complications develop.

Obviously Kate Winslet is playing Ms. Jim Belushi.

Between this and Twin Peaks, I am absolutely here for the career resurgence of Jim Belushi