Brow Beat

Warren Beatty Is Back in the Director’s Chair for Rules Don’t Apply. Here’s the First Trailer.

It’s been 18 years since the release of Bulworth, Warren Beatty’s classic political comedy—and also since Beatty has directed a film. But now, the Academy Award–winning filmmaker is settling back into the director’s chair, for another star-studded, lightly comic historical romp.

His new film Rules Don’t Apply, set for a Nov. 23 release, takes the action back to 1950s Hollywood and reimagines Howard Hughes—whom Beatty himself plays—as an employer striving to prevent a love affair between two ambitious young people under his contract. Said youngsters are a devout Baptist and aspiring actress who has just moved from Virginia (Lily Collins) and a devout Methodist and aspiring businessman working in Hollywood (played by Alden Ehrenreich, fresh from the ’50s Hollywood of Hail, Caesar!). Throughout the film, the pair navigates the maze of new Hollywood in all its newfound creative and commercial promise—alongside a gaggle of great supporting actors, including Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin, Matthew Broderick, Candice Bergen, Ed Harris, and Martin Sheen. Turns out that if you stop working for long enough, more people might actually be willing to take your call.