Oscar-winning director Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind) is currently in production on a new film, a survival thriller formerly known as Origin of the Species and now going by the title Eden, and The Hollywood Reporter has broken the news that the cast has been rounded out by Felix Kammerer (All Quiet on the Western Front), Toby Wallace (Babyteeth), Paul Gleeson (The Thin Red Line), Ignacio Gasparini (Como Hermanas), and Richard Roxburgh, whose previous credits include Moulin Rouge, Rake, Mission: Impossible II, Van Helsing, and Elvis.
Kammerer, Wallace, Gleeson, Gasparini, and Roxburgh join previously announced cast members Vanessa Kirby (Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning), Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria), Jude Law (Sherlock Holmes), Ana de Armas (Knives Out), and Daniel Bruhl (The Alienist). Kirby and Sweeney took over roles that were previously assigned to Alicia Vikander and Daisy Edgar-Jones.
Deadline notes that Eden is based on an unsolved mystery that unfolded on a remote island in the Galapagos and charts the lengths humans will go in pursuit of happiness. Other reports have revealed that the screenplay by Tetris writer Noah Pink is based on “two different accounts of the same true story.” It’s said to be “a darkly comic tale of murder and survival, set around a group of eclectic characters who abandon civilization for the Galapagos. They are all searching for the answer to that ever-pressing question that plagues us all: what is the meaning of life.” Howard has been wanting to bring the story to the screen for 15 years, ever since he visited the place where the real events took place.
Howard is producing the film alongside Brian Grazer and Karen Lunder for Imagine Entertainment, AGC Studios’ Stuart Ford, and Bill Connor and Patrick Newall. AGC Studios, Library Pictures International, and Elevate Production Finance are providing the funding. The producers say Eden “explores the human condition in ways that are unexpected, absurd, humorous, sexy, but above all thrilling and deeply suspenseful.“
Filming is taking place in Queensland, Australia, with a small unit filming in the Galapagos.
Are you interested in Eden? What do you think of the cast Ron Howard has assembled for the film? Let us know by leaving a comment below.