Daisy Ridley is set to star in the psychological thriller The Marsh King’s Daughter, based on the bestselling book by Karen Dionne. Limitless and Divergent helmer Neil Burger will direct from a script by The Revenant scribe Mark L. Smith and Elle Smith.
Black Bear Pictures will finance the project, and its principal Teddy Schwarzman (The Imitation Game) will produce alongside Anonymous Content’s Keith Redmon and Mark L. Smith, who recently worked together on The Midnight Sky.
Ridley will play a woman hiding a dark secret — her father is the infamous “Marsh King” who kept her and her mother captive in the wilderness for years. After a lifetime of trying to escape her past, she’s forced to face her demons when her father escapes from prison. This sounds like an interesting project for Ridley, and a far cry from her work in big-budget blockbusters such as Star Wars.
STX International will begin selling the prime package at the upcoming virtual EFM, as production is slated to start this summer in Canada. CAA Media will handle the sale of U.S. rights, while STX will distribute in the UK, Ireland and India. The project falls under its output deal with Black Bear, which calls for STX International to sell and distribute all Black Bear productions overseas, with Black Bear’s sister company, Elevation Pictures, distributing all STX productions and acquisitions in Canada.
Burger is the filmmaker behind the box office hits Divergent, Limitless and The Upside, the latter of which grossed more than $100 million at the domestic box office. He also directed and executive produced the first two episodes of Showtime‘s Billions, and directed Edward Norton‘s 2006 drama The Illusionist.
STX currently has several movies in production, including Guy Ritchie‘s latest flick starring Jason Statham, Joe Carnahan‘s Cop Shop starring Gerard Butler, and JD Dillard‘s Korean war epic Devotion starring Glen Powell and Jonathan Majors. Meanwhile, Black Bear‘s comedic thriller I Care a Lot starring Rosamund Pike premiered on Netflix this weekend.
As for Ridley, she has signed on to star in the Disney+ movie Young Woman and the Sea, and she’ll soon be seen opposite Tom Holland in the sci-fi movie Chaos Walking, which recently unveiled a new trailer.
via Collider