Director Paul Feig announced during a conversation at the 6th Annual Women in Entertainment Summit in Los Angeles that A-list actor Cate Blanchett has been cast as the narrator for his upcoming Netflix Original fantasy film The School For Good and Evil.
The School of Good and Evil is based on Soman Chainani’s fantasy book hexalogy, the first of which was published in 2013. Directed by Feig and written by him, Vanessa Taylor, and David Magee the film, like the book, focuses on best friends Sophie and Agatha who are kidnapped from their village and taken to a fairy-tale world where they must enroll at the School for Evil and Good, a school where the students learn to become fairytale heroes or villains. Although the beautiful Sophie has always dreamed of princesses, she ends up in the school for Evil, while her friend Agatha who has no interest in that sort of thing, somehow ends up in the school for Good. Not only will they be challenged to find out who they can be, but their friendship will also be put to the test.
As he listed the female stars that lead the ensemble, Feig revealed: “And actually, we just got Cate Blanchett as now the narrator, so we’re very excited about that. It hasn’t actually been announced yet — it’s out there.”
Blanchett is a two-time Academy Award-winning Australian actress who is known for having starred in films such as Elizabeth (1998), The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), The Aviator (2004), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Blue Jasmine (2013), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), and more recently, Nightmare Alley and Don’t Look Up (2021).
Blanchett joins an already star-studded cast that includes Sophia Anne Caruso as Sophie, Sofia Wylie as Agatha, Laurence Fishburne as the School Master, Michelle Yeoh as Professor Emma Anemone, Charlize Theron as Lady Lesso, and Kerry Washington as Professor Clarissa Dovey. Other members of the cast include Ben Kingsley, Patti LuPone, and Rob Delaney.
The first key art for the film was unveiled on June 6, with its first trailer coming out the next day on June 7 during Netflix’s Geeked Week.
The School for Good and Evil was shot at multiple locations in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Derry was also briefly considered as a filming location but was rejected for a number of reasons. The film will be premiering on Netflix this Fall. While we wait for more information about this frighteningly good time, watch the teaser trailer below:
via Collider