Director Lenny Abrahamson's 2015 film received four Academy Award nominations, including a "Best Achievement in Directing" nod for Abrahamson himself, with lead actress Brie Larson winning an Oscar for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role". Abrahamson has now decided to follow up the success of that film by delving into some supernatural horror.
Abrahamson is set to direct an adaptation of the Sarah Waters gothic novel THE LITTLE STRANGER, working from a screenplay by Lucinda Coxon, writer of the film THE DANISH GIRL. Coincidentally, THE DANISH GIRL received four Academy Award nominations itself, with Alicia Vikander winning for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role" at the same ceremony where Larson won in the other Actress category for her performance in ROOM.
THE LITTLE STRANGER is set in
post-WWII Britain, where a doctor revisits a crumbling great house called Hundreds Halls where his mother once worked as a nurse maid. The owners are losing the house because they can’t afford the taxes, even though they say the home is haunted by the malevolent ghost of their mother’s first born daughter. The doctor becomes obsessed with marrying one of the owner’s daughters, and bad things happen.
Domhnall Gleeson (EX MACHINA, STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, THE REVENANT) will be playing the doctor, with Ruth Wilson (I AM THE PRETTY THING THAT LIVES IN THE HOUSE) as the woman he wants to marry.
THE LITTLE STRANGER is being produced by Element Pictures and Gail Egan's Potboiler. The Irish Film Board and Film4 are contributing to the budget, and Pathé International will be handling international sales.