Though she's rightfully earned her claim to fame thanks to a string of comic roles, Emma Stone has slowly branching out. She's put on her blockbuster shoes with "The Amazing Spider-Man" franchise, gone down the drama route with "The Help" and last weekend gave a stab at playing the femme fatale in the guns and molls goof "Gangster Squad." But for one her next roles, she'll be heading into new territory.
The actress is in early negotiations and expected to sign for Guillermo Del Toro's next feature effort, "Crimson Peak." A haunted house movie, Del Toro has been cagey about the exact plot details, but did say last month, it had a classical literary feel. "It’s set at the turn of the century and it is a gothic romance with ghosts. When I use the GR [gothic romance] term I use it not in the Barbara Cartland model but rather in a Bronte fashion. Dark and stormy and wind-swept," he wrote on his official forums. "This is my first foray into horror since Sci-Fi/Horror 'Mimic.' DBB ['The Devil’s Backbone'] was more of an essay on ghosts than a ghost story and, except as a producer, I have not returned to scary stuff in a long time.”
As usual, Del Toro has about a half dozen projects on the go, but when spoke to him this week — as he was promoting the Jessica Chastain starring "Mama" which he produced — he clarified his timeline. "We're going to be doing the pilot for the series 'The Strain' [based on the trilogy of novels co-written by Del Toro and 'The Town' author Chuck Hogan] for Fox and then I'm going to go right into the prep for 'Crimson Peak.' " he shared. Variety says a February 2014 start is in the cards.
So in short: Stone in a gothic romance/haunted house movie directed by Del Toro? Yeah, we're in. As for Stone, she'll spend a chunk of 2013 shooting "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" and hopefully between that and "Crimson Peak," that project she's looking to do with Cameron Crowe will get in front of cameras. [Variety]
