Alex Garland, the British writer/director behind Ex Machina and 2018's Annihilation, has begun the casting process on his next project. Garland had spoken last year about the script to Empire magazine, calling it "a low-budget horror movie, set in the UK," but wasn't sure about its chances for being made.
Now, he's officially signed on with A24 Films in Los Angeles, the production company behind Uncut Gems and On the Rocks, to make the movie. Now entitled Men, the film is described by sources like Deadline as being about "a young woman who takes a vacation into the English countryside after the death of her ex-husband." Presumably, that means that either something's going to go terribly wrong or English countryside vacations are a lot worse than one would imagine.
That young woman is planned to be played by Jessie Buckley (I'm Thinking of Ending Things), with Rory Kinnear (No Time to Die) in an unspecified role. Garland is reportedly in the process of finding a co-star for Buckley, with no known lead candidates at the time of writing.
Garland initially broke into public view with his 1996 novel The Beach, about a community of backpackers in an idyllic location, which became a word-of-mouth bestseller. He later moved into film with the screenplays for 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Never Let Me Go, Dredd, and an unproduced film adaptation of Halo.
Garland's debut as a dual-classed writer/director was 2014's award-winning thriller Ex Machina, starring Domhnall Gleeson and Alicia Vikander, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. His most recent project was Devs, a 2020 eight-episode miniseries on FX that starred Sonoya Mizuno (Crazy Rich Asians) as a software engineer looking into the mysterious death of her boyfriend. While Garland has made his share of thrillers, Men represents his return to outright horror, as well as his directorial debut in the genre.
Jessie Buckley is an Irish actress who was primarily known for her work on BBC productions until 2017, when she played the lead in the indie thriller Beast. More recently, besides her work in the mind-bending Charlie Kaufman film I'm Thinking of Ending Things on Netflix, she appeared in HBO's Chernobyl and season four of FX's Fargo.
Source: Collider