Universal’s Focus Features offered theater owners a first look at Alexander Payne’s New England prep school comedy The Holdovers, Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls and the last installment of My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, giving some love, naturally, to Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, set to bow in Cannes. “Wes Anderson cannot make a movie that is not magic,” said Focus distribution chief Lisa Bunnell at CinemaCon, calling the helmer’s fare “the Marvel of specialty movies.” RELATED: CinemaCon 2023 – Deadline’s Full Coverage In the new Payne film, which reteams the director with his Sideways star Paul Giamatti, the actor plays Paul Hunham, a curmudgeon private school instructor.
He’s left in charge of the students who are staying behind over the 1970 Christmas break. The pic was shot at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts.
Trailer has a true 70s absurdist comedy vibe, a la Harold and Maude, including the Cat Stevens song “I Never” playing over it.
Hunham is told by his supervisor to be kind to the kids, but he can’t help but bicker with them and hand out copious detentions. “I was praying that your father would arrive in a submarine, or helicopter…” yells Hunham.
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