Earlier this year, we heard that 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), had secured North American distribution through Paramount’s Republic Pictures label. A release date for the film still hasn’t been announced, but today a full trailer has arrived online, and you can check it out in the embed above.
The End We Start From stars Jodie Comer of Killing Eve and Free Guy, Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), Mark Strong (1917), Joel Fry (Yesterday), Gina McKee (My Policeman), Nina Sosanya (His Dark Materials), and Katherine Waterston (Alien: Covenant).
The film was directed by Mahalia Belo (The Long Song), who was working from a screenplay by Alice Birch, a writer and story editor on the HBO series Succession. Birch also served as showrunner on the 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.”
Are you interested in The End We Start From? What did you think of the film’s trailer? Let us know by leaving a comment below.