When Netflix purchased the rights to the Roald Dahl back catalogue, it would have been easy to assume the streaming service would be content churning out formulaic adaptations of the author’s work to cash in on the enduring popularity of the brand.
In a turn of events nobody could have seen coming, though, the streaming service instead decided to partner up with Wes Anderson to craft a 39-minute version of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, Rupert Friend, and Richard Ayoade.
It’s already working a treat, with the mini-movie debuting at the Venice Film Festival and immediately securing a 100 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes right out of the gate, but it turns out that’s just the tip of the iceberg after Anderson confirmed plans for three more short-form stories based on Dahl’s bibliography.
“There’s another one that’s in the Henry Sugar collection that’s called The Swan, we’ve done that with Rupert Friend. We did a very old one called Poison, which is one I always loved… And then we’ve also done a very, very strange one called Ratcatcher, which is from a book called Claud’s Dog, a kind of obscure Dahl book set in the Eastern part of England. It’s a really rural one, it’s a peculiar story. And they’re all strange. But I don’t really have any other ones in mind. I have some things brewing, but that might be it for Dahl for the moment.”
Not just a star-studded literary adaptation but the launchpad for an entire anthology helmed by the idiosyncratic filmmaker, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is but a mere appetizer for what’s to come.