Annette: Release Date, Cast And More

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First announced back in 2016, the long-awaited musical Annette looks like it will be well worth the wait. You'll find everything you need to know about Annette below.

Annette is set to premiere during the opening night of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in France. But for those of us who can't afford to jet-set around the world, Amazon Studios will give Annette a limited theatrical release on Friday, August 6, 2021, and the film arrives on Amazon Prime Video quickly after that, on Friday, August 20.

Annette marks the English language film debut of French director Leos Carax, whose most recent feature film was 2012's astounding, transfixing, and wholly unique Holy Motors, a film about a mysterious man who dons various personas throughout a single day in Paris. (If you're looking to prepare for Annette, Holy Motors is currently available to stream for free on Vudu, Redbox, and Kanopy.) Annette was initially meant to be an album by the band Sparks, but was developed into a film after the writers met with Carax at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. The final movie is officially described as "a journey of love, passion & fame." You can listen to two officially released songs from the film here and here.

Annette is set in "Los Angeles, today. Henry (Adam Driver) is a stand-up comedian with a fierce sense of humor who falls in love with Ann (Marion Cotillard), a world-renowned opera singer. Under the spotlight, they form a passionate and glamorous couple. With the birth of their first child, Annette, a mysterious little girl with an exceptional destiny, their lives are turned upside down."

Leos Carax directs Annette from a screenplay by Ron and Russell Mael, the two brothers best known for their work as the genre-hopping music artists Sparks. Ron and Russell's careers were just highlighted in Edgar Wright's new documentary The Sparks Brothers, which touches on how the brothers spent years trying to make a movie with Tim Burton and other filmmakers, only for that project to eventually fall through. Annette will be their first feature film; they wrote the story, co-wrote lyrics with Carax, and produced and performed the music with the film's cast.

Adam Driver (Star Wars: The Last Jedi) and Marion Cotillard (Inception) star as the film's central couple, while Simon Helberg (The Big Bang Theory), Natalie Mendoza (The Descent), Rila Fukushima (The Wolverine), and Ron and Russell Mael round out the supporting cast.