Wes Anderson’s next Roald Dahl adaptation will be a short film for Netflix

With his latest Asteroid City on the precipice of release, Wes Anderson gave IndieWire a taste of what’s next: An adaptation of the Roald Dahl short story The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar, a short film that runs less than 40 minutes.

The director’s been in the Dahl business for more than 20 years, even outside of directing 2009’s animated The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Anderson, who met Lindsey Dahl, the author’s widow, while shooting The Royal Tenenbaums, wanted to make Sugar “for years,” and the Dahls were nice enough to “set this story aside for me because I was friends with them.”

“I really couldn’t figure out the approach,” Anderson told IndieWire. “I knew what I liked in the story was the writing of it, Dahl’s words. I couldn’t find the answer, and then suddenly I did. It’s not a feature film. It’s like 37 minutes or something.”

As for why it ended up on Netflix, well, “that’s a bit of a weird thing.” In the years between the story being set aside and Anderson picking up the camera, Netflix bought the rights to the Dahl catalog for a paltry $686 million—chump change for most. However, Netflix could serve as an appropriate platform for something that’s not quite a feature film—just as the streamer did for David Lynch’s talking monkey short, What Did Jack Do? The purchase forced his hand, but it sounds like he’s pleased with the results.

“Suddenly, in essence, there was nowhere else you could do it since they own it,” Anderson said. “Beyond it, 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 these BBC things called “Play for Today” directed by people like Steven Frears and John Schlesinger and Alan Clarke. They were one-hour programs or even less. I kind of envisioned something like that.”

The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar may lack runtime, but not star power. The cast includes Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, and Ben Kingsley.

There is no word as to when the movie will be released, but Asteroid City opens in limited release on June 16 and everywhere on June 23.