NEED TO KNOW
George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern and Billy Crudup are teaming up with writer-director Noah Baumbach for a new comedy.
On Tuesday, Aug. 5, Netflix released the first trailer for Jay Kelly, the first movie by Marriage Story director Baumbach, 55, since 2022’s White Noise.
“Everybody knows Jay Kelly, but Jay Kelly doesn’t know himself,” reads a tagline for the movie, shared when Netflix first unveiled its released date and an image of Clooney in the film in May.
The film “follows famous movie actor Jay Kelly (Clooney) and his devoted manager Ron (Sandler) as they embark on a whirlwind and unexpectedly profound journey through Europe. Along the way, both men are forced to confront the choices they’ve made, the relationships with their loved ones, and the legacies they’ll leave behind.”
Peter Mountain/Netflix
Sandler, Clooney and Dern lead an ensemble cast in Jay Kelly that also features Grace Edwards, Stacy Keach, Riley Keough, Emily Mortimer, Isla Fisher, Patrick Wilson, Nicôle Lecky, Thaddea Graham, Jim Broadbent, Eve Hewson, Alba Rohrwacher, Lenny Henry, Josh Hamilton and Baumbach’s wife Greta Gerwig, with whom he co-wrote 2023’s smash hit Barbie.
Peter Mountain/Netflix
Gerwig, 41, has largely transitioned to working as a director in recent years, but she last appeared on the big screen in Baumbach’s White Noise, which also starred Adam Driver. For Jay Kelly, Baumbach and actress Mortimer, 53, co-wrote the screenplay.
Scott Stuber, a former Netflix executive who left the company in 2024, described the movie to Collider back in November 2023 as “an excellent kind of Jerry Maguire-esque, for lack of a better analogy,” and also called it “a really great life-affirming movie,” while Netflix itself described the film on Tudum as “a heartbreaking comedy.”
Jay Kelly is in select theaters Nov. 14, then streaming on Netflix Dec. 5.
