The movie industry is still shut down, and it’s not clear when it will reopen — when, essentially, it’s safe to have cast and crew once again sharing spaces that aren’t six feet apart. But months of quarantine have given talent plenty of time to plot their next move when they can make them. When Ari Aster, acclaimed director of Hereditary and Midsommar, finally gets to a film set, he’s planning on going big.
As caught by /Film, the filmmaker was speaking to the Associated Students Program Board at UC Santa Barbara, during which he dropped a couple details about his next movie. He didn’t say much, but what he said was tantalizing — namely that it will be, in his words, a “nightmare comedy,” or to be slightly more specific am “apocalyptic break-up movie.” Oh, and it will be four hours long.
A couple things. One, Aster may make serious, downer, incredibly upsetting horror movies, but they’re also quite funny, at least if you’re on their mordant wavelength. Granted, not everyone probably thinks the thing that happens with the bear in Midsommar is amusing, but then, not everyone’s going to see a four hour movie. Which brings to point number two: His movies are quite long. Midsommar is exactly as long as Goodfellas, and the director’s cut he made available in some markets later on ran nearly three hours. Truly, if anyone’s going to make the longest comedy since It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, it might by Ari Aster.
(Via /Film)