Back in December, it was announced that Frank Langella (Masters of the Universe) had been cast as Roderick Usher, “the towering patriarch of the Usher dynasty”, in genre regular Mike Flanagan’s Edgar Allan Poe-inspired Netflix limited series The Fall of the House of Usher. Filming on the show began in early February – and now, halfway through production, a shocking turn of events: Deadline reports that Langella has been fired from The Fall of the House of Usher following an investigation into claims that he had been involved in unacceptable conduct on set. This conduct reportedly included making inappropriate comments to a female co-star.
The Roderick Usher role will be recast and everything that had been filmed with Langella will be reshot with his replacement. Filming on the series will continue with scenes not involving the character until the new actor is cast.
Here’s the set-up for Poe’s story The Fall of the House of Usher:
Roderick Usher and his sister Madeline are the only two surviving members of the aristocratic Usher family. For many years, they have lived together in the ancient mansion which is their ancestral family home. Madeline Usher has been ill for a long time and is not expected to live much longer. Partly due to his sister’s illness and partly, he believes, due to the negative influence of the old mansion in which he lives, Roderick Usher has fallen into a deep melancholy. To help recover his spirits, he summons his old friend, the story’s unnamed narrator, to come visit him.
This limited series isn’t solely based on that story, though. Just like Flanagan and his writers drew inspiration from multiple different Henry James stories when crafting The Haunting of Bly Manor, they’re mixing elements of multiple different Poe stories for this show.
The cast of The Fall of the House of Usher includes Kate Siegel (Hush), Rahul Kohli (Midnight Mass), Mark Hamill (Star Wars), Carla Gugino (The Haunting of Hill House), Mary McDonnell (Battlestar Galactica), Carl Lumbly (Doctor Sleep), Henry Thomas (The Haunting of Bly Manor), Samantha Sloyan (Grey’s Anatomy), T’Nia Miller (Years and Years), Sauriyan Sapkota (The Midnight Club), Zach Gilford (Friday Night Lights), Katie Parker (Absentia), Michael Trucco (How I Met Your Mother), Malcolm Goodwin (iZombie), Crystal Balint (A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting), Kyleigh Curran (Secrets of Sulphur Springs), Paola Nuñez (Bad Boys for Life), Aya Furukawa (The Cabin in the Woods), Matt Biedel (Narcos: Mexico), Daniel Jun (The Expanse), Ruth Codd (The Midnight Club), Robert Longstreet (Halloween Kills), Annabeth Gish (Before I Wake), Willa Fitzgerald (Scream: The TV Series), and Igby Rigney (F9).
Aside from Roderick Usher, we only know details about a few of the characters:
Mark Hamill plays “a character surprisingly at home in the shadows”; Mary McDonnell is Madeline Usher, Roderick’s twin sister; Carl Lumbly plays Poe’s investigator C. Auguste Dupin.
Coming to us from Netflix and Flanagan’s production company Intrepid Pictures, The Fall of the House of Usher will consist of eight episodes. Flanagan will be directing four of those episodes, and the other four will be directed by Michael Fimognari, who was Flanagan’s cinematographer on Oculus, Before I Wake, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep, and the Flanagan / Netflix shows The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass.
Flanagan and Fimognari are executive producing The Fall of the House of Usher with Trevor Macy and Emmy Grinwis. Flanagan has said that this show is going to be “blood-soaked and wild”.
Who do you think should replace Langella as Roderick Usher? Leave your suggestions in the comments section below.