Unlike 2018 and 2019, this year is sadly devoid of a new film from director Ari Aster. With his first two features, “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” doing great business and exciting film fans, many were hoping that Aster would have another quick turnaround on a project for this year. Apparently, that’s not the case, but the filmmaker is hard at work on a new feature and from the sound of it, the new film is going to be pretty unique.
Recently, Aster was interviewed by the Associated Students Program Board at UC Santa Barbara. And during the interview, he discussed his previous film work but also teased what might be coming in the future. While he didn’t go into immense detail, Aster did say that his next project is a “nightmare comedy” with an extended runtime.
He added, “All I know is that it’s gonna be four hours long…”
Of course, it’s unclear how serious Aster is about the film’s length, but considering he did release a 3-hour cut of “Midsommar,” there is precedent to show that the filmmaker doesn’t have much of a problem testing the endurance of film fans. As for what we think the picture might be, his description of the project as a “nightmare comedy” does gel with what he teased last year.
In an AMA on Reddit last year, the filmmaker said, “Next one will either be a zonky nightmare comedy or a big, sickly domestic melodrama.”
It seems that Aster has settled on that “zonky nightmare comedy” project and set aside the domestic melodrama. Obviously, given the themes present in both “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” it’s almost impossible to venture a guess as to what the film might look like or be about. This is the guy that made a demon-possession film that was really about family drama and mental illness and a folk horror film that was really a break-up drama.
All we know is that we’re ready for whatever Aster has for us. And hopefully, it’s sometime in 2021.
