MGM has released the first trailer for Three Thousand Years of Longing from filmmaker George Miller (Mad Max). The film is an adaptation of A.S. Byatt’s 1994 short story “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye,” and also easily one of the most anticipated movies of the summer.
Set to premiere in theaters on August 31, this clip is the very first look at the movie–until this point, details had been pretty much non-existent other than the fact that it’d team Tilda Swinton (Isle of Dogs) with Idris Elba. As the trailer shows, Swinton portrays Alithea Binnie, a lonely scholar who, while on a trip to Istanbul, accidentally summons a djinn (Elba) who offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. As Binnie says in the trailer, and also likely applies to the movie, “There is no story about wishing that is not a cautionary tale.”
First announced back in 2018, Three Thousand Years of Longing was first teased as an ambitious epic. All these years later, that very much seems to be the case–in just over two minutes, the trailer is filled with separate visual and audio psychedelic grooves, wild special effects, and an extremely appealing easy sense of humor.
In addition to Swinton and Elba, the movie’s cast also includes Aamito Lagum as Queen of Sheba, Burcu Gölgedar as Zefir, and Matteo Bocelli as Prince Mustafa. Three Thousand Years of Longing is directed, co-produced, and co-written by George Miller and his daughter, Augusta Gore.
For much much more on the movie, check out this extensive Q&A with Miller from Deadline.
