When production wraps on IT: CHAPTER TWO later this month, Sophia Lillis's time playing the character of Beverly Marsh will have come to an end… but the young actress has already signed up for another job that will see her facing off with a child-killing monster.
Lillis is the first cast member to join director Osgood Perkins' reimagining of a classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale, GRETEL AND HANSEL.
Written by Perkins and Rob Hayes, the film will be
set a long time ago in a distant fairy tale countryside and focuses on a young girl who leads her little brother into a dark wood in desperate search of food and work, only to stumble upon a nexus of terrifying evil.
An Orion Pictures project, GRETEL AND HANSEL is expected to begin filming in Ireland this fall.
Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Fred Berger of Automatik Entertainment are producing the film, with Sandra Yee Ling executive producing and Dan Kagan overseeing things for Orion.
I was impressed by Lillis's performance in the first IT, so I'm glad to see she's going to do more work in the horror genre.
This is Perkins' third genre project in a row. The son of PSYCHO star Anthony Perkins, he made his feature directorial debut with THE BLACKCOAT'S DAUGHTER (a.k.a. FEBRUARY) and followed that with I AM THE PRETTY THING THAT LIVES IN THE HOUSE. He also co-wrote THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPHS.