Warren Beatty’s latest screen entry – a long-gestating passion project where the veteran screen legend portrays eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes – has for the years gone under the moniker “Untitled Warren Beatty Project.” We finally have our first real look of the movie as well now called Rules Don’t Apply. The result so far? Well, that may not be so clear but this being the first project Beatty has appeared on screen since the ill-fated 2001 disaster Town & Country and the first he’s directed since the 1998 black comedy Bulworth marks the picture with a grander sense of significance.
A romantic comedy of sorts between a young starlet (Lily Collins, Mirror, Mirror) and a determined driver (Alden Ehrenreich, Hail Caesar! and our future, younger Han Solo), Rules Don’t Apply ups the ante on these two budding lovers as they are each in the employ of the highly eccentric Howard Hughes (Beatty). Hughes has already been the subject of one major Hollywood film – that would be Martin Scorcese’s Oscar-winning 2004 biopic The Aviator starring Leonardo DiCaprio – yet Rules Don’t Apply, on first impression, appears lighter and perhaps far fuzzier on reality with Hughes’ mental illness, at least in the trailer, seemingly put in the background for comical effect.
Whatever the case, Rules Don’t Apply has a stellar ensemble cast that includes Mrs. Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Haley Bennett (The Equalizer), Taissa Farmiga (The Bling Ring), Ed Harris (Pain and Gain), Matthew Broderick (You Can Count on Me), Martin Sheen (The Departed), Steve Coogan (Tropic Thunder), Candice Bergen (Sweet Home Alabama), Oliver Platt (Kill the Messenger), Amy Madigan (Gone Baby Gone) and Alec Baldwin, who also co-starred in The Aviator. Beatty also wrote the script.
Rules Don’t Apply is set to open in theaters on November 11th. Check out the trailer below.