EXCLUSIVE: Yorgos Lanthimos is re-teaming with The Lobster co-writer Efthimis Fillipou and producers Element Pictures and Film4 on The Killing Of A Sacred Deer. As with The Lobster, Lanthimos will co-write and also direct. The story follows a young man that needs to take revenge, a doctor that has to make a decision, and his family that must survive. It is a psychological thriller with supernatural elements.
Sacred Deer is one of a number of projects Lanthimos is developing with Element’s Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe and Film4’s David Kosse. Also in the pipelines is The Favourite, with Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz attached to star in the historical drama, which follows the political machinations behind the scenes during the reign of Queen Anne, the last monarch of the House of Stuarts. The story takes place between the end of the 17th century and first years of the 18th century, when Anne reigned from 1702-1707.
Colman would play the Queen, with Weisz playing Queen Anne’s close confidante Sarah and Stone playing Abigail Masham, an impoverished, distant relative of Sarah, who gains a position at court tending to the Queen. The story follows the shifting balance of power between the lead characters as they jockey for influence. Film4 and the BFI developed the project. Scarlet Films’ Ceci Dempsey, also a producer on The Lobster, is producing with Element.
Lanthimos scored rave reviews for The Lobster, where in a dystopian near future, single people, according to the laws of The City, are taken to The Hotel, where they are obliged to find a romantic partner in 45 days or are transformed into beasts and sent off into The Woods. The film has established the Greek director as one of the hottest European filmmakers currently working.
He is repped by CAA, Sayle Screen and LBI Entertainment.
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