The first teaser trailer for Ari Aster’s next thriller film Eddington has arrived.
The Western thriller and black comedy film will have its world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival in May.
It stars Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Clifton Collins Jr. and Amélie Hoeferle.
“Of course, they keep looking at that lab in China. If you look at that lab in Wuhan,” a man’s voice narrates at the beginning of the clip. “When that was established, it was 1956, of course, that was the year Tom Hanks was born, the first celebrity with the virus.”
Phoenix stars as a small-town sheriff in the titular small New Mexico town, where he challenges his mayor (Pascal) in a pandemic-set situation, as evidenced in the trailer.
Phoenix’s character can be seen scrolling through social media clips of himself talking about how “the people of Eddington like guns” so those who value their lives should think twice followed by Austin Butler’s character making a rousing speech about pain not being a coincidence. Next comes Emma Stone’s character “speaking now to deny [her] husband’s announcement yesterday, which was false.”
Next comes Amélie Hoeferle’s character, who posted a TikTok-like video with the words “When you finish reading James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room” and captioned, “1 like = 1 ACAB.”
Following a conspiracy post about Michael Jackson and 9/11 and a #blackouttuesday post of the black square, a video of Pascal’s Mayor Ted Garcia can be seen vowing to keep Eddington safe during the pandemic as part of his mayoral campaign.
Another video of Phoenix’s policeman is captioned, “ ‘Law and Order’ Sheriff Assaults Protestor in Town Rocked By Murders” as a headline.
Aster wrote, directed and is producing the film alongside Lars Knudsen under their Square Peg Banner. This marks his fourth feature film after Hereditary, Midsommar and Beau is Afraid.
The film is financed and produced by A24, which rolled out sales on the film at Berlinale’s European Film Market in February, which signaled a potential Cannes entry.
