Yorgos Lanthimos’ Next Movie is Coming Way Sooner Than You Think
From Poor Things to the Next Thing.
Yorgos Lanthimos is both one of the weirdest and most efficient directors working today. From The Lobster to The Killing of A Sacred Deer, he’s managed to produce a parade of critically acclaimed movies. After his latest success, the multi-Oscar-winning Poor Things, Lanthimos is attempting to pull off a new feature film less than a year after his last. This new project shares many cast members with Poor Things, but one new element could make it even more unique.
Last week, Searchlight Pictures announced Kinds of Kindness will hit theaters on June 21, 2024. Lanthimos’ new movie will reunite Poor Things stars Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and Margaret Qualley, and will also feature Jesse Plemons, Hong Chau, Joe Alywn, Mahmoudou Athie, and Hunter Schafer.
Remarkably, Kinds of Kindness was filmed in less than two months in 2022, and it’s quite different from the film it’s following up. Lanthimos described the movie to The Guardian as “a contemporary film, set in the US – three different stories, with four or five actors who play one part in each story.”
Willem Dafoe and Emma Stone will work together again in Kinds of Kindness.
That implies an anthology-style narrative, something like Wes Anderson’s French Dispatch or the Coen Brothers’ Ballad of Buster Scruggs. “They all play three different parts,” Lanthimos said. “It was almost like making three films, really.”
That structure is already different from Lanthimos’ previous features, but there’s one more big change. In The Favourite and Poor Things, Lanthimos worked with The Great creator Tony McNamara, but with Kinds of Kindness, he’s gone back to his Lobster and Sacred Deer collaborator Efthimis Filippou.
Filippou’s cerebral writing differs greatly from McNamara’s comedic themes, so it may not appeal to the same audience. But with Lanthimos on board, it’s sure to be just as weird as ever.
