Del Toro’s Nightmare Alley remake will have R rating, nothing supernatural

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Guillermo del Toro is currently in the casting stage for his next directorial effort, a new adaptation of the William Lindsay Gresham novel NIGHTMARE ALLEY, which was previously turned into a movie back in 1947. The lead role in the film will be played by Bradley Cooper, and Cate Blanchett is in talks to co-star.

Speaking with Collider while doing the press rounds for SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK, which he produced and co-wrote, del Toro revealed that NIGHTMARE ALLEY is going to be very different from any of his previous films: it's not going to contain any supernatural elements at all. Instead, this film is going to be telling "a straight, really dark story".

NIGHTMARE ALLEY is the story of 

an ambitious young con-man who teams up with a female psychiatrist who is even more corrupt than he is. At first, they enjoy success fleecing people with their mentalist act, but then she turns the tables on him, out-manipulating the manipulator.

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 can already guarantee that the finished film is going to be rated R, in fact he intends for it to earn a 

big R. Double R!"

I haven't seen the 1947 version of NIGHTMARE ALLEY or read the novel, so I really don't know what sort of events del Toro will be dealing with in this film, but I'm looking forward to finding out. In the meantime, copies of the novel can be purchased at THIS LINK.