Director Jennifer Kent Teases Next Film Is Sci-Fi Adaptation Shooting This Year, Her First Feature Since 2018

Australian filmmaker Jennifer Kent made waves with her original horror film “The Babadook,” but hasn’t made a feature since the revenge thriller “The Nightingale” from 2018. After that hiatus, Kent is now giving some insight about her next project, which is aiming to begin shooting later this year.

During a recent appearance on the movie-nerd comedy podcast “Blank Check,” Kent was game to speak on the work of director Peter Weir and his WWI film “Gallipoli” that featured a young Mel Gibson (the podcast tends to do batches of episodes based on the body of work of multiple directors over the years, each episode focused on one of their titles with a guest).

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Over that wide-ranging conversation (spotted by World of Reel) and praise of Weir, Kent revealed that she is working on a mysterious sci-fi project, but stopped short of giving any concrete plot details. She did mention “working on a sci-fi film that looks to be shooting this year,” and is an “adaptation of something,” but what that means is sort of up in the air until we learn more about this gestating project.

After “The Nightingale,” Jennifer Kent had been trying to make the lesbian romance thriller “Alice + Freda Forever“ based on the Alexis Cole novel of the same name for Amazon, but that seemingly isn’t happening anytime soon. That true story took place in Memphis during the late 19th century, so it isn’t likely this would be the adaptation Kent was teasing on the podcast (likely another book?).

Kent had more recently worked with genre guru Guillermo del Toro on his Netflix anthology horror series “Cabinet of Curiosities.” She wrote and helmed the episode “The Murmuring,” which had a story hatched by del Toro. Essie Davis, Andrew Lincoln, Greg Ellwand, and Daxton William Lund played roles in that eighth episode.

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You can listen to Jennifer Kent’s appearance on “Blank Check” below, as they talk about Weir and Aussie-made movies.