Having already worked with compatriots Baz Luhrmann, James Wan, Kim Farrant, Phillip Noyce, and John Polson (who is directing her in the upcoming “The Last Anniversary” from author Liane Moriarty), Nicole Kidman generally finds a way to work with every notable Aussie filmmaker she can. And now she can add one more to the list: Justin Kurzel, the celebrated indie filmmaker known for “Macbeth,” “Assassin’s Creed,” and “True History of The Kelly Gang,” starring Aussie Russell Crowe.
The team behind Kidman projects, “Nine Perfect Strangers” and “The Undoing” — Blossom Films and Made Up Stories—have put together a new project titled “Mice” that Kurzel will direct and Kidman will star in. The debut novel of Gordon Reece, an electrifying psychological thriller about a mother and daughter pushed to their limits, Shaun Grant, one of Kurzel’s frequent collaborators (“Nitram” and “The Snowtown Murders“), will write the screenplay.
Here’s the book’s synopsis, which kind of reads like a modern-day Sam Peckinpah film like “Straw Dogs.”
Shelley and her mom have been menaced long enough. Excused from high school, where a trio of bullies nearly killed her, and still reeling from her parents’ humiliating divorce, Shelley has retreated with her mother to the quiet of Honeysuckle Cottage in the countryside. Thinking their troubles are over, they revel in their cozy, secure life of gardening and books, hot chocolate, and Brahms by the fire. But on the eve of Shelley’s sixteenth birthday, an unwelcome guest disturbs their peace, and something inside Shelley snaps. What happens next will shatter all their certainties about their safety, their moral convictions, the limits of what they are willing to accept, and what they’re capable of.
Kurzel is currently in post-production on his latest feature, “The Order,” about a white supremacist group active in the United States in the 1980s starring Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, and Tye Sheridan. That’s expected to arrive later this year, and yep, it’s on our list of the 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2024.
Kidman has nearly dozens of projects that will appear this year. She stars next in Prime Video’s “Expats” from director Lulu Wang coming out later this month (see that trailer below), and on the horizon and expected later this year are films by Richard LaGravenese (“A Family Affair”), Mimi Cave (“Holland, Michigan”), and TV mini-series like “The Perfect Couple” (on our Most Anticipated 2024 TV Series list) [Deadline]