The End We Start From: Benedict Cumberbatch joins apocalyptic thriller, first image revealed

Jodie Comer of Killing Eve and Free Guy stars in the apocalyptic thriller The End We Start From, an adaptation of author Megan Hunter’s 2017 debut novel (you can pick up a copy of Hunter’s novel at THIS LINK), and now that filming is underway in London Deadline has announced that Comer is being joined in the cast by Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), Mark Strong (1917), Joel Fry (Yesterday), Gina McKee (My Policeman), and Nina Sosanya (His Dark Materials). The previously announced Katherine Waterston (Alien: Covenant) is also in the cast.

In addition to the casting news, Deadline got their hands on a first look image of Comer in the film, and you can check that out at the bottom of this article.

Mahalia Belo (The Long Song) is directing The End We Start From, working from a screenplay by Alice Birch, who is a writer and story editor on the HBO series Succession. Birch is also showrunner on the upcoming Dead Ringers series based on the 1988 David Cronenberg film. Described as a “feminist survival story”, The End We Start From will tell the following story:

As London is submerged below floodwaters, a woman gives birth to her first child, Z. Days later, she and her baby are forced to leave their home in search of safety. They head north through a newly dangerous country seeking refuge from place to place. The story traces fear and wonder as the baby grows, thriving and content against all the odds.

Hunter’s novel is said to be “a lyrical vision of the strangeness and beauty of new motherhood, and a tale of endurance in the face of ungovernable change.”

Anton and BBC Film are co-financing the film version of The End We Start From, with SunnyMarch’s Leah Clarke and Adam Ackland, Hera Pictures’ Liza Marshall, and C2’s Jason Cloth and Dave Caplan producing alongside Sophie Hunter and Amy Jackson. Comer, Cumberbatch, and Strong serve as executive producers with Anton’s Sébastien Raybaud and Cecile Gaget and BBC Film’s Eva Yates. SunnyMarch is Cumberbatch’s production company, and Anton has a minority share in it.

Clarke, Marshall, and Ackland previously described The End We Start From as “a story about motherhood, separation, social and environmental upheaval, and those primal instincts in us which draw moments of joy and inspiration out of the chaos.”

I haven’t read the source material, but the film version sounds quite promising, and Belo has definitely assembled a strong cast for it. Are you interested in The End We Start From? Let us know by leaving a comment below.