(From deadline.com) UPDATE Thursday AM: Woody Allen’s ‘Wonder Wheel‘ will have its world premiere as the Closing Night selection of the 55th New York Film Festival at Alice Tully Hall on Saturday, October 14. Amazon Studios will release ‘Wonder Wheel’ on December 1, 2017, the first film the studio will distribute independently.
“I’m not quite sure what I expected when I sat down to watch ‘Wonder Wheel‘, but when the lights came up I was speechless,” said NYFF Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones. “There are elements in the film that will certainly be familiar to anyone who knows Woody Allen’s work, but here he holds them up to a completely new light. I mean that literally and figuratively, because Allen and Vittorio Storaro use light and color in a way that is stunning in and of itself but also integral to the mounting emotional power of the film. And at the center of it all is Kate Winslet’s absolutely remarkable performance—precious few actors are that talented, or fearless.”
EARLIER: Woody Allen’s ‘Wonder Wheel‘ looks to have been set to close out the 55th New York Film Festival, running September 28-October 15. The film, starring Kate Winslet, Juno Temple, Justin Timberlake and James Belushi, will go into limited release December 1, with Amazon Studios distributing. Amazon also has Richard Linklater’s ‘Last Flag Flying’ and Todd Haynes’ ‘Wonderstruck’ in choice spots at the Gotham fest.
Allen’s ‘Café Society’ premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. ‘Wonder Wheel’ was shot in the writer-director’s home city, returning him to Coney Island, where his alter ego Alvy Singer grew up in the shadow of the Cyclone roller coaster in 1977’s ‘Annie Hall’.
Typically, for an Allen film, plot elements of the new film are being kept under tight wraps. A logline for the drama set in the 1950s says that it will contain “larger-than-life characters, lovers, infidelity, and gangsters.” Per usual, Allen wrote the screenplay.