Another Love Triangle is Brewing in A24 Past Lives Follow-Up Materialists
Quick rule of thumb: If you’re a woman and you find yourself in a love triangle where both Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal are fighting over you, you may want to check if you’re currently asleep and dreaming … or in a screenplay. It’s the latter for Dakota Johnson in the first trailer for A24’s upcoming Materialists, the sophomore film of Past Lives writer-director Celine Song. That tender modern romance ended up being one of our top 10 films of 2023, so Song’s involvement here as writer-director is certainly enough to catch our interest, even if the footage in the trailer below looks significantly more conventional as a romantic dramedy than Past Lives.
Johnson is playing a high-powered matchmaker here, someone who specializes in introducing people of means in a big city and facilitating the relationships that end up yielding marriages–you can’t help but be reminded of 2000s romantic comedies such as The Wedding Planner in particular. Pedro Pascal seems to be playing an extremely wealthy “unicorn” that Johnson’s character meets at one of those weddings, sparking some instant chemistry. Evans, on the other hand, appears to be someone from Johnson’s past–an old flame, we’re assuming, who reenters her life at the same time as she meets Pascal. The obvious stakes have been set: Who is she to choose? The “older man” millionaire, or the more down-to-Earth, roommate-having Evans?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Materialists trailer is sprinkled with little eccentricities, like Johnson’s go-to drink order being … Coke and beer? Will we get to see her fiddle with that Coke bottle like she so famously did with the unopened Pepsi can in Madame Web? It also kind of looks like Chris Evans is being asked to play a bit under his actual age of 43, with his jet black hair–like they’re trying to close the perceived age gap between him and the mid-30s Dakota Johnson, while playing up the gap between her and Pascal. In reality, Evans and Pascal are closer in age than Evans and Johnson, for what it’s worth.
Regardless, we have faith that Celine Song will see this thing across the finish line, and potentially revive the box office ambitions of the romantic comedy in the process. Materialists is due to arrive in theaters on June 13, 2025. Check out the first trailer below.