First time director Ari Aster struck gold with his feature debut Hereditary, a complex psychological horror whose emotional depth and lingering atmosphere has earned it comparisons to The Exorcist and The Shining. With acclaim that breathless, the young filmmaker is wasting no time in prepping his next project.
Aster’s next film doesn’t have a title yet, but he’s remaining in the horror genre, and working once again with indie producers A24. The movie will star Florence Pugh (Lady Macbeth), Will Poulter (Son of Rambow, Detroit) and Jack Reynor (Free Fire).
According to Collider, the film will be about a couple (played by Pugh and Poulter) who go on holiday to Sweden to visit a mutual friend’s rural hometown during a fabled mid-summer festival. From there things take a turn for The Wicker Man, as said tradition soon spirals into a bizarre pagan cult nightmare.
Sounds good to me! Hereditary was A24’s highest-grossing film to date, and even those disappointed with the film’s final act turn are still likely to be interested in this sophomore effort. All eyes are on Aster, and with a cast that strong and synopsis that enticing, he might just be able to pull it off again. Once again Ari Aster writes and directs, with Lars Knudsen producing.
Before that, Florence Pugh will appear in Oldboy director Park Chan-Wook’s The Little Drummer Girl, a BBC miniseries adapted from John le Carre’s book of the same name. She’s also amongst the cast announced for Greta Gerwig’s new version of Little Women, and David Macknezie’s forthcoming Netflix series Outlaw King.
Poulter is in the mix for Lenny Abrahamson’s big-screen take on Sarah Waters’s The Little Stranger, and Reynor has a small role in Andy Serkis’s Jungle Book adaptation Mowgli, which was just acquired by Netflix.
