Well, here’s a welcome early Christmas surprise: the team behind “The Brutalist,” filmmakers Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold (“The World To Come”) have just finished shooting a secret and surprise musical called “Ann Lee,” and the cast is outstanding.
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Partners creatively and in real life too, both Corbet and Fastvold are writer/directors (they met during her excellent directorial debut, “The Sleepwalkers”). Fastvold has co-written all the films Corbet has directed thus far, “The Childhood of a Leader,” “Vox Lux,” and the upcoming and acclaimed “The Brutalist” (which garnered seven Golden Glob nominations recently).
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For “Ann Lee,” their roles are reversed. Fastvold is directing, and Corbet has co-written the script and is producing the picture along with her. The terrific cast features Amanda Seyfried, Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, Christopher Abbott, Tim Blake Nelson and Stacy Martin.
Golden Globe-nominated composer Daniel Blumberg (“The Brutalist”) also wrote and produced the original music, and the film is being described as an “epic fable.” The dramatic musical centers on the religious leader Mother Ann Lee, the founding leader of the Shaker Movement, a millenarian restorationist Christian sect that was organized in the United States in the 1780s, which also means it’s a historical period piece (born in the U.K., she emigrated to New York in 1774). Lee was declared the female Christ by her devout followers and went on to build one of the largest utopian societies in American history. Lee was one of the rare female religious heads at the time, and her disciples worshipped through exuberant song and dance that was dubbed “shaking” and led to the group’s name.
So, the premise already seems to have some analogous qualities to “The Brutalist” and its period-piece historical tale of immigration to the United States.
The cast also stars Matthew Beard, Scott Handy, Viola Prettejohn, David Cale, and Jamie Bogyo. Seyfriend is an Emmy award winner for “The Dropout,” and this one will be her first musical since “Mama Mia.” Sales and distribution have yet to be set on the project, but the producers behind it are hoping for a 2025 launch.
“Ann Lee” was never announced and comes as a surprise. Filming was just completed, so perhaps they could have the drama ready for the Venice Film Festival next fall—the same festival that debuted “The Brutalist” to great acclaim and won Corbet the Best Director prize. We’ve already made our list of the Most Anticipated Films of 2025, but if we were going to insert a spiritual edit, picture this one securely lodged somewhere in our top ten—this one sounds fantastic.
First reported by Deadline.
