Not since the turn of the millennium has Warren Beatty stepped before the camera, and it’s been even longer since the veteran helmed a feature film of his own. Looking to kill two birds with the one cinematic stone later this year, Beatty is primed to direct and star in Rules Don’t Apply, a period drama centering on the story of elusive billionaire Howard Hughes.
Pegged to land in November, Entertainment Weekly has premiered a pair of still images for the period drama, placing Beatty in the role of Hughes himself. Elsewhere, there’s also first looks at Alden Ehrenreich – your new Han Solo – and Lily Collins, who uproots for Hollywood to pursue a new life during the early ’60s.
When quizzed about his longstanding desire to craft a movie based on the life and times of Howard Hughes, Beatty told EW: “I’ve had the idea of making a movie about Howard Hughes in mind for a long time. We never met, but I sometimes feel like I knew everybody who knew Howard and I never lost my curiosity about him. It’s just that I don’t run around doing movies all the time.”
Much of that progress came down to nailing a story to anchor Rules Don’t Apply, and here the writer-director outlines the journey that awaits Ehrenreich and Collins.
This is a story about a young man (Alden Ehrenreich) and a young woman (Lily Collins) who come to Hollywood, both of whom are affected by American Protestant, American Puritan morality on the brink of the sexual revolution and the rise of feminism that was to take place in the early ’60s.
Also starring Annette Benning, Oliver Platt, Ed Harris, Martin Sheen, and Matthew Broderick, expect Warren Beatty to prove the Rules Don’t Apply when his take on Howard Hughes hits theaters on November 11.