Focus Features has acquired the worldwide rights, excluding the U.K., France and Switzerland, to Lenny Abrahamson’s “The Little Stranger,” chairman Peter Kujawski announced Tuesday.
The film is a ghost story, which will begin production in the U.K. this summer and is set for a release in 2018. Charlotte Rampling, Domhnall Gleeson, Ruth Wilson and Will Poulter are set to star. It marks filmmaker’s follow-up to “Room,” which was nominated for best picture and director, and won Brie Larson her best actress Oscar.
Lucinda Coxon, who wrote the screenplay adaptation of Focus’ “The Danish Girl,” has adapted “The Little Stranger” from Sarah Waters’ 2009 novel of the same name.
The film follows a local practitioner (Gleeson) in a remote English village after the end of World War II. Dr. Faraday is called to the aged estate of Hundreds Hall to tend to an unwell parlormaid. Rampling will portray the glamorous widow and owner of the estate, while Wilson and Poulter will play her grown children. Faraday is welcomed into the home but soon becomes entangled with the family and a haunting ghost.
“We’re thrilled to be working with Lenny, a filmmaker who has proven to redefine every genre he takes on,” said Kujawski. “We are excited to be partnering once again with our good friends at Pathé and Film4 on ‘The Little Stranger,’ a classic ghost story to chill moviegoers.”
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“The Little Stranger” is a Focus Features, Pathé, and Film4 presentation in association with Ingenious Media and the Irish Film Board of a Potboiler production in association with Element Pictures. Producers on the project include Gail Egan, Andrea Calderwood and Ed Guiney. Executive producers are Pathé’s Cameron McCracken, Film4’s Daniel Battsek, Irish Film Board’s Celine Haddad, Ingenious’ Tim O’Shea, and Element’s Andrew Lowe. The film was developed by Potboiler and Film4 with Element Films.