Netflix revealed this morning that “Jay Kelly,” a new film by Noah Baumbach featuring George Clooney and Adam Sandler, is set to hit theaters on November 14, with its streaming debut scheduled for December 5. It’s getting the two-week Netflix treatment.
Alongside the announcement, Netflix shared a first-look image of Clooney in the lead role.
When unveiling “Jay Kelly,” Netflix described the film as a “heartbreaking comedy,” though few details have been shared beyond that. According to the logline, “everybody knows Jay Kelly…but Jay Kelly doesn’t know himself.”
The cast for this one is absolutely stacked. Alongside Clooney and Sandler, you have Billy Crudup, Laura Dern, Riley Keough, Patrick Wilson, Jim Broadbent, Eve Hewson, Alba Rohrwacher, Emily Mortimer and Greta Gerwig.
After his $150M+ Netflix gamble, “White Noise,” failed to launch, Baumbach is giving the streaming giant the kind of project they most desire: a romcom set in NYC and London.
Baumbach is the writer-director behind the indie classics “The Squid and the Whale” and “Frances Ha.” His “Marriage Story” (2019) also earned multiple Oscar noms. Sandler previously teamed up with the filmmaker on “The Meyerowitz Stories.” Clooney has never worked with either of them.
“Jay Kelly” could very well have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September. It will certainly be hitting the fall fests, and that could include Toronto, Telluride and New York.
The theatrical version runs 108 minutes, so we're talking a nearly 2-hour-10-minute cut of a movie that works because it's lean, and I'm not sure anyone needs that.