There are heaps of new film projects heading to Cannes to find buyers and financiers. One of the more buzzy movies connected to the film market is “Outer Dark,” starring Jacob Elordi (“Saltburn”) and Lily Rose-Depp (“Nosferatu”), which is an adaptation of the 1968 novel by author Cormac McCarthy.
The package deal heading to buyers at Cannes, revealed by Deadline, will see the pic directed by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Laszlo Nemes of the Holocaust film “Son of Saul,” which will make “Outer Dark” his first English-language feature effort.
One of the odd hooks is that there is an incest plot between the two leads as brother and sister have a child together that is abandoned in the woods, as the dark fantasy story is also set in Appalachia during the Great Depression. Nemes feels like the perfect kind of filmmaker to tackle such dark subject matter.
The “Outer Dark” script was co-written by Nemes and Clara Royer. Mike Goodridge of Good Chaos is producing alongside Nemes with executive producers Ilene Feldman, Ori Eisen of Original Films, and Nicolas Gonda. The book-to-screen rights are held by Good Chaos and Nemes.
An official synopsis of the McCarthy novel via Amazon:
A woman bears her brother’s child, a boy; he leaves the baby in the woods and tells her he died of natural causes. Discovering her brother’s lie, she sets forth alone to find her son. Both brother and sister wander separately through a countryside being scourged by three terrifying and elusive strangers, headlong toward an eerie, apocalyptic resolution.
McCarthy’s work has been grim, complex, and often difficult to adapt for the big screen, with John Hillcoat‘s “The Road” being one of the most notable features based on his published work alongside the Coen Brothers‘ “No Country For Old Men.” The late author, who passed in 2023, had penned the script for the crime thriller “The Counselor” for director Ridley Scott after multiple failed attempts to get the brutal western “Blood Meridian” off the ground.
Speaking of “Blood Meridian,” John Logan is currently writing the latest iteration with Hillcoat attached to helm for New Regency.
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