Director Adam McKay (Anchorman, The Big Short) seems to be taking the “star-filled ensemble” route seen in previous films such as the Ocean’s series or the later Marvel Cinematic Universe films for his next film, Don’t Look Up. The comedy drama, which is planned to debut on Netflix at a currently unannounced date, tells the story of a pair of low-level astronomers who discover that a meteor will hit the Earth in six months, but are unable to convince the general public that they are serious.
Previously, it had been revealed that The Hunger Games’ Jennifer Lawrence would star as one of the astronomers. Now, news source Variety has confirmed that mega-star Leonardo DiCaprio will play the other. Also appearing in the film will be a veritable “who’s who” of Hollywood names, including Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Timothee Chalamet, Himesh Patel, Matthew Perry, Rob Morgan, and Jonah Hill. It’s not just Hollywood’s best and brightest – singer Ariana Grande and rapper Kid Cudi will also be making an appearance.
Other than DiCaprio, none of the actors’ roles have been revealed so far. However, McKay confirmed to Variety that he plans to reuse a strategy previously employed in The Big Short, which will feature many of the stars in cameo roles rather than starring as lead characters. Regardless of the size of their role, though, it will be beyond cool to see all of these huge names together in a single film.
Don’t Look Up is currently scheduled to begin filming in late 2020, with no COVID-19-related delays announced so far. However, DiCaprio, Streep and Chalamet are currently filming other projects, (Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Ryan Murphy’s The Prom, and the upcoming adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune respectively) so it is not yet known when they will have time to begin working on McKay’s project.
