Del Toro’s Nightmare Alley has begun filming

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Guillermo del Toro's new film NIGHTMARE ALLEY has a truly killer cast including Bradley Cooper, Toni Collette, Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Rooney Mara, David Strathairn, and Holt McCallany. And today, producer J. Miles Dale took to Twitter to let us know that it has begun shooting.

Check out his tweet below.

Excited to start shooting today on our new adventure NIGHTMARE ALLEY with @RealGDT and many of our regular gang. pic.twitter.com/lzPHhXpppI

— J. Miles Dale (@milofx1) January 21, 2020

Written by Del Toro with Kim Morgan NIGHTMARE ALLEY is based on the novel by William Lindsay Gresham and is a noir thriller set in a world of carnival hustlers and con men, telling the story of a mentalist (Cooper) who teams with a psychologist in order to swindle the rich.

RELATED: DEL TORO'S NIGHTMARE ALLEY WILL BE RATED R, NOTHING SUPERNATURAL

Del Toro said he was drawn to this material because 

that book was given to me in 1992 by Ron Perlman before I saw the Tyrone Power movie, and I loved the book. My adaptation that I’ve done with [co-writer] Kim Morgan is not necessarily — the entire book is impossible, it’s a saga. But there are elements that are darker in the book, and it’s the first chance I have — in my short films I wanted to do noir. It was horror and noir. And now is the first chance I have to do a real underbelly of society type of movie."

Del Toro already guaranteed that the finished film is going to be rated R, in fact he intends for it to earn a "big R. Double R!"

It stars Bradley Cooper as Stanton "Stan" Carlisle, Cate Blanchett as Dr. Lilith Ritter, Rooney Mara as Molly Cahill, Toni Collette as Zeena Krumbein, David Strathairn as Pete Krumbein, Willem Dafoe as Clem Hoately, and Holt McCallany as Anderson. Richard Jenkins, Michael Shannon, and Ron Perlman were rumor to have roles in the film as well. But we've heard no updates on those casting rumors. We'll keep our ears and eyes peeled. 

NIGHTMARE ALLEY is directed by Guillermo del Toro from a screenplay he wrote with Kim Morgan based on the book by William Lindsay Gresham. Del Toro produces alongside J. Miles Dale. Searchlight Pictures (formerly FOX Searchlight Pictures before Disney took over) will release the film. 

Leonardo DiCaprio was originally cast as the lead but when negotiations fell through DiCaprio was quickly replaced by Bradley Cooper.