Ari Aster’s Disappointment Blvd Adds Nathan Lane, Patti LuPone, Amy Ryan and Kylie Rogers

Ari Aster’s film career to date has been pretty much defined by disturbing material that reduces its characters to quivering masses of sorrow, but the director’s next project, the upcoming Disappointment Blvd., looks to potentially buck that trend. At the very least, this film doesn’t appear to be a “horror movie” per se, but it does have something in common with Aster’s other works: A strong ensemble cast. Today, Deadline revealed a slew of new additions, including two Broadway legends in the form of Nathan Lane and Patti LuPone. Those two are likewise joined by Amy Ryan and Kylie Rogers, who will be performing alongside the already announced Joaquin Phoenix.

This film will be Phoenix’s follow-up to his Best Actor Academy Award for Joker, and Disappointment Blvd. will presumably star him as its lead. Plot details have been very sparse, but the film is said to be “an intimate, decades-spanning portrait of one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time,” which once again doesn’t sound like a horror synopsis—more like a biopic of Ron Popeil, which sounds like it would have a certain dark comedy sensibility. A24 is producing the film, with Aster writing and directing.

It seems safe to say that whatever Aster has come up with, it’s been impressive to his cast, given that both Phoenix and LuPone are notoriously picky about the projects they attach themselves to. LuPone, in fact, has mostly worked on the Broadway stage in recent years, although she did have an eye-turning role as Avis Amberg in Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series Hollywood. Nathan Lane, meanwhile, has been his usual prolific self, with appearances in everything from Penny Dreadful: City of Angels to Hulu’s upcoming Only Murders in the Building. Oddly enough, that series also includes Amy Ryan, also announced here for Disappointment Blvd..

The young Kylie Rogers, meanwhile, will next be seen in Disney+’s reboot of Cheaper by the Dozen, and also appears in Paramount’s Yellowstone.

We can’t wait to see what Aster has up his sleeve, and if he’ll manage to reduce these characters to tears regardless of a seemingly less horrifying tone.