Full Trailer for Ari Aster's Pandemic Thriller EDDINGTON with Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal

A24 has released the full trailer for director Ari Aster’s new film Eddington, which is set during the COVID pandemic, a moment in time that I really have no desire to revisit. That was just such a weird, crazy, and scary time.

Aster is a great filmmaker, though, and it looks like he’s made an interesting film. The movie is described as a modern Western and the brief logline reads:

“A standoff between a small-town sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) and mayor (Pedro Pascal) sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.”

The new trailer pulls takes us back five years, when six-foot-enforced social distancing was a thing, and there were protests sparked by the death of George Floyd and there were tons of online conspiracy theorists.

Phoenix and Pascal are joined by Austin Butler, Emma Stone, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Amélie Hoeferle, Clifton Collins Jr. and William Belleau.

This is Aster’s fourth feature film, following Hereditary, Midsommar and Beau Is Afraid, the last of which Phoenix also starred in. When talking about working with Phoenix, Aster said:

“Having now worked with him, I understand why he is so reluctant to jump onto anything — because he really puts all of himself into whatever he’s doing. The way that he challenges the material — not in a gratuitous way or in a way that’s a pain in the ass.

“The question usually amounts to ‘Is there anything we haven’t considered here?’ I realized that it’s something that I was really wanting from an actor, and now I can’t imagine making a film without him.”

Eddington is set to open in competition at Cannes. It will be released in the US on July 18.