The first look at filmmaker Ang Lee’s first film since winning the Best Director Oscar for Life of Pi has arrived. The debut image for Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk teases Lee’s adaptation of the Ben Fountain novel of the same name, which stars stars Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, and Steve Martin and follows a group of soldiers as they’re celebrated as heroes during the halftime show at a Thanksgiving Day football game, intercutting the footage with flashbacks to their traumatic battle in Iraq. Newcomer Joe Alwyn leads the picture as private Billy Lynn, and given that the source material is a piece of finely tuned satire, it’s going to be mighty interesting to see what kind of tone Lee and screenwriter Jean-Christophe Castelli strike here.
Visually, this is one of the most ambitious movies ever made. Lee and cinematographer John Toll (Braveheart, The Thin Red Line) shot the picture at an unprecedented 120 frames per second, in 4K native 3D. The goal was to create a new cinematic syntax for viewers and further immerse the audience in the story, and given how divisive Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was at only 60 frames-per-second, this is gonna be interesting.
Footage previewed at the Future of Cinema Conference last month was met with wild praise from tech insiders, but they are a very different audience than moviegoers at large, so the rollout for the film should be fascinating. For now, take a look at the debut image below via Sony, which hopefully means a trailer is arriving soon. Chris Tucker and Vin Diesel also star, and Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk opens in theaters on November 11th.
Here's the official synopsis for Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk:
Three-time Academy Award® winner Ang Lee brings his extraordinary vision to Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, based on the widely-acclaimed, bestselling novel. The film is told from the point of view of 19-year-old private Billy Lynn (newcomer Joe Alwyn) who, along with his fellow soldiers in Bravo Squad, becomes a hero after a harrowing Iraq battle and is brought home temporarily for a victory tour. Through flashbacks, culminating at the spectacular halftime show of the Thanksgiving Day football game, the film reveals what really happened to the squad – contrasting the realities of the war with America’s perceptions. The film also stars Kristen Stewart, Chris Tucker, Garrett Hedlund, with Vin Diesel, and Steve Martin. Lee used new technology, shooting at an ultra-high frame rate for the first time in film history, to create an immersive digital experience helping him dramatize war in a way never seen before.