Where Is Netflix's White Noise Premiering First?
The first trailer for Noah Baumbach's adaptation of Don DeLillo's award-winning novel "White Noise" has finally dropped online, with the project said to be "coming soon" to selective theaters and Netflix, though no date has been released yet. But fear not, cinephiles and DeLillo fans. There will actually be a chance to catch the apocalyptic black comedy before August ends — but you better get your passport ready.
The official synopsis for "White Noise," which stars Adam Driver as professor Jack Gladney and Greta Gerwig as his wife Babette, describes the movie as an emotional tour-de-force that's set to invoke DeLillo's many themes and mysteries from his 1985 novel of the same name (via Netflix). As further noted, the film "dramatizes a contemporary American family's attempts to deal with the mundane conflicts of everyday life while grappling with the universal mysteries of love, death, and the possibility of happiness in an uncertain world."
"White Noise" marks the third time now that Baumbach, Driver, and Netflix have teamed up, with their Oscar-nominated 2019 hit "Marriage Story" and 2015's "While We're Young" being their first cinematic outings. In their last two films, "White Noise" and Marriage Story," Driver plays a seemingly normal dad who is faced with various problems related to life and the frightening realizations that come with it. Adapting DeLillo's literary works has been a Mount Everest-sized mountain to climb for filmmakers, so it's easy to see why anticipation is so high for the Netflix project, which was first announced in January 2021. While a Netflix release date has not been announced, "White Noise" does have an official premiere date, and it comes on one of the world's biggest film stages ...
White Noise to open the Venice Film Festival, making it the first Netflix movie to do so
According to reports, Noah Baumbach's "White Noise" is currently set to open the 79th Venice Film Festival — marking the very first time in history that a Netflix original film has opened the lauded movie fest, per Variety. It'll reportedly premiere on August 31.
"It is a great honor to open the 79th Venice Film Festival with 'White Noise,'" boasted Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera in a statement. He went on to call "White Noise" a magnificent telling of Don DeLillo's 1985 classic and referred to it as "an original, ambitious and compelling piece of art which plays with measure on multiple registers: dramatic, ironic, satirical," per Variety. "The result is a film that examines our obsessions, doubts and fears as captured in the 1980s, yet with very clear references to contemporary reality," Barbera concluded.
It's ultimately been a long time coming for DeLillo's enigmatic telling of family life in the Jack Gladney household. The "White Noise" movie rights have been floating around Hollywood for years now, with "Hamlet" filmmaker Michael Almereyda being pegged in 2016 to direct and Uri Singer's BB Film Productions to produce, as reported by Variety.
"I think the book combines a sense of humor with a sense of menace," Singer said in a statement at the time. "The book has great dialogue and features many cinematic episodes. It radiates an appreciation of American life but also elements of satire. There's a central love story between a husband and wife, but with an awareness of the secrets and fears that they keep from one another."