Wes Anderson’s new short film has been given a Netflix release date

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is based on Roald Dahl’s short story of the same name

Netflix has shared the release date for The wonderful story of Henry Sugar, a new short film by Wes Anderson adapted from Roald Dahl’s short story of the same name. After premiering on September 1st at the Venice Film Festival, the title will be streamed on Wednesday, September 27th.

The duration of 39 minutes The wonderful story of Henry Sugar Starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role, a compulsive gambler who discovers a new method of cheating. Ralph Fiennes will also star in the film as Dahl, while Dev Patel, Sir Ben Kingsley and Richard Ayoade round out the ensemble cast.

This is Anderson’s second time bringing a Dahl story to the screen, following 2009 Fantastic Mr. Fox. In an interview with IndieWire earlier this year, he explained that he had long wanted to adapt Henry Sugar — the Dahl family even had it lined up for him — but at first he struggled to turn it into a script.

“I knew what I loved about the story was the writing of it, Dahl’s words,” she said. “I couldn’t find the answer and suddenly I found it. It is not a feature film. It’s like 37 minutes or something. But by the time I was about to do it, the Dahl family no longer had the rights at all. They had sold the whole deal to Netflix.”

He continued: “Suddenly, basically, there was nowhere else to do it since they owned it. But other than that, because it’s a 37-minute movie, it was the perfect place to do it because it’s not really a movie. You know they used to do that stuff on the BBC Play for today directed by people like Stephen Friars and John Schlesinger and Alan Clarke. They were programs of one hour or less. I kind of envisioned something like that.”

Anderson’s most recent feature film was last June Asteroid City.

Editor’s Note: See the definitive ranking of Anderson’s filmography…