Netflix’s Don’t Look Up Cast to Include Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Timothée Chalamet, Meryl Steep, Jonah Hill and More

Big-budget comedies with A-list casts have increasingly become a thing of the past, but one person who knows quite a bit about that particular artform is writer-director Adam McKay. The creator of classics like Anchorman and Step Brothers, McKay presided over the last era when studios were content to spend big bucks to secure major talent for wide release comedies. And now it seems like he’s somehow talked Netflix into doing the same, as his upcoming Netflix comedy Don’t Look Up is putting together an ensemble cast for the aged.

We already knew the film was starring Jennifer Lawrence, but McKay has now signed on the following names as well: Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, Jonah Hill, Himesh Patel, Timothée Chalamet, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, Matthew Perry, Rob Morgan and Tomer Sisley. Now that’s an impressive group of performers, especially for a comedy.

Don’t Look Up seems to be a modern comedy with appropriately apocalyptic overtones, about the approach of a deadly meteor. Says IMDB: “A pair of astronomers try to warn everyone on Earth that a giant meteorite will destroy the planet in six months,” but presumably no one believes them. Perhaps the story takes place during the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 election, and no one simply has any time for another piece of bad news? Lawrence is presumably playing one of those astronomers, but it’s not exactly clear who her partner would be. Jonah Hill? DiCaprio himself? Regardless, McKay is writing and directing—his first film since 2018’s Vice, in which Christian Bale played Dick Cheney.

DiCaprio is obviously a big get for Netflix, as the Oscar winner’s next project is meant to be Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, but he’s also now finding time for Don’t Look Up. We’re looking forward to more details emerging on what kinds of characters all of these A-listers will be portraying.