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Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley have boarded Wes Anderson’s newest feature, an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s short story collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More that’s set up at Netflix.
Anderson wrote the script and is directing the adaptation; shooting gets underway this month in the U.K. The project is the first to go since Netflix acquired the Roald Dahl Story Company in fall 2021 in a blockbuster deal that gave the streamer rights to the author’s entire catalog. It is unclear, however, how long Anderson has been developing the project, but the filmmaker is a fan of the writer’s oeuvre, having previously adapted Fantastic Mr. Fox as a stop-motion feature in 2009.
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Netflix declined to comment on the castings.
The tome, published in 1982, features both fiction and nonfiction. The title story centers on Henry Sugar, a man who steals a book that shows him how to see through objects and predict the future. This touches off a series of misadventures that involve evading Mafia henchmen, working with a Hollywood makeup artist to craft new identities and setting up orphanages around the world.
While it is unclear what roles Patel, Fiennes and Kingsley are playing, it is known that Cumberbatch will not only play Sugar but will also act as a link to the other stories by playing multiple roles throughout.
Anderson is known for using a familiar repertoire of actors for his movies. Fiennes starred in the director’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, but Cumberbatch, Patel and Kingsley are newcomers to the Anderson feature world.
Cumberbatch is currently starring in the billion-dollar-grossing worldwide hit Spider-Man: No Way Home and comes back as the good Doctor Strange with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, due in May 2022. He is repped by UTA.
Patel garnered praise for his work in A24’s The Green Knight, released in July 2021, while Fiennes is currently on screens with The King’s Man. Kingsley stole scenes in the recent Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
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