If you've been wondering what Hard Candy and 30 Days of Night director David Slade has been up to since taking the unexpected detour of directing The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, the answer is that has been working steadily in television. Not only has Slade taken the helm of episodes of Breaking Bad and Black Mirror (plus that interactive Black Mirror feature Bandersnatch), he has also become a go-to director for pilot episodes. Awake, This American Housewife, Hannibal, Crossbones, Powers, American Gods, Barkskins, he directed the pilots for all of those shows. Now he has another pilot lined up, as he's set to direct the first episode of a psychological thriller series called Red Bird Lane for the HBO Max streaming service.
The great Crispin Glover has signed on to play a series regular role on Red Bird Lane. James Urbaniak, Jamie Clayton, Rya Kihlstedt, and Grantham Coleman are on board for recurring roles, and Damon Dayoub will make a guest star appearance. It was previously announced that the show will star Susan Sarandon, Kiersey Clemons, Isidora Goreshter, Danny Huston, Ash Santos, Fiona Dourif, Dizzie Harris, and Tara Lynne Barr.
Written by Sara Gran, the show follows
eight strangers who arrive at an isolated house, all for different reasons. Upon their mysterious and coincidental arrival, the strangers realize that something sinister and terrifying awaits them.
Of course they're terrified, because Glover is going to be lurking around as a "bad man" named Jonah, "who arrives at the mysterious house in the center of the thriller for money."
Sarandon's character is Catherine, "a welcoming and beautiful hostess with a devious secret"; Clemons is playing Jane, "a mix of high intelligence and no common sense. She came to the house for drugs"; Goreshter is Isabelle, "who is sophisticated and hard-edged, although not unkind. She came to the house for pleasure"; Huston is Hugh, "old money and exhausted. He came to the house for resolution"; Santos is Kesha, "who is is soft-spoken, elegant, and hard as nails. She came to the house to save a life"; Dourif is playing the smart and cruel Mikki, "Catherine's right-hand person. She came to the house for fun"; Harris is Sam, "who is well-meaning, but in way over her head. She came to the house for hope"; Barr is the young and naive Rose, "who came to the house out of desperation"; Urbaniak is Tanner, "a charming and arrogant character who also arrives to the Red Bird Lane house for unspeakable reasons"; Clayton is the sarcastic, hard-edged but charming Jessica, "who comes to the mysterious residence for fraud"; Kihlstedt is Eloise, a "blunt yet enigmatic house guest who arrives for a dinner party"; Coleman is the intelligent, handsome but cruel Sigmund, "who comes to the sinister house to bury a secret"; and Dayoub is Ian Goodman, "a handsome philosophy professor".
Slade and Gran are executive producing Red Bird Lane with John Wells and Erin Jontow for John Wells Productions.
In the midst of all his television work, Slade also contributed a segment to the recent horror anthology Nightmare Cinema.