Bill Murray is ringing in the holiday season with the Sofia Coppola-directed Christmas special A Very Murray Christmas airing on Netflix on November 4th. When Netflix announced the special back in May they called it an "homage to the classic variety show," which of course means the special boasts an all-star cast and lots of quirkiness. The new trailer dropped this week and with it came more glimpses of guest stars including including Miley Cyrus, Jenny Lewis, Phoenix, George Clooney, Amy Poehler, Michael Cera, Chris Rock, Jason Schwartzman, and Maya Rudolph among others.
The new trailer sets up the plot for the film: the seasoned actor attempts to host an old-school holiday special at New York's Carlyle hotel, but a snow storm rolls through and shuts down every road, bridge, and tunnel and prevents his planned guests from arriving in time to join the festivities. In the trailer, the camera pans past place cards at the empty seats hilariously reserved for Sir Paul McCartney, Pope Francis, and George Clooney.
As Wired reports, you'll want to pause the trailer at 0:06 for former Late Show With David Letterman music director Paul Schaffer and again at 1:00 for Jenny Lewis and Phoenix playing Carlyle catering staff dealing with a lopsided wedding cake and the ridiculous demands of the holiday special host. The new trailer also offers before unseen clips of Stephen Colbert and Julie White.
The special is written by Murray alongside Mitch Glazer and Sofia Coppola, and directed by Coppola. It is executive produced by the same trio as well as Roman Coppola and Tony Hernandez.
As Pitchfork reports, Murray's collaboration with Phoenix this holiday season extends beyond the silver screen: they are also teaming up for a 7-inch entitled Alone on Christmas Day, which will also be released on December 4th. The titular track not only features Phoenix and Murray, but also Schwartzman, Schaffer, and Buster Poindexter, AKA David Johansen of New York Dolls. On the b-side is an instrumental version of the song.
Watch the latest trailer for A Very Murray Christmas, below.
