Sydney Sweeney‘s new take on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow has just headhunted its new lead. It’s already snagged one of the stars of Off Campus, and now it’s about to complete its love triangle with its new Ichabod Crane, whose typically gawky physique might have to be adjusted, given the barbarian superhero who’ll be filling his buckled boots.

Hollow will star Sweeney as Katrina Van Tassel, a young woman in the colonial American town of Sleepy Hollow, New York. She’s between two suitors: intellectual outsider Ichabod Crane and local jock Brom Bones. However, her love life soon becomes a backdrop to a supernatural killer stalking the fields of Sleepy Hollow…one who’s looking to make heads roll. It’s said to combine the traditional tale by Washington Irving with supernatural, psychological, and erotic thriller elements. Last month, Off Campus star Belmont Cameli was cast as Bones, leaving only one major role left to cast.

Now, Deadline reports that Nicholas Galitzine is in final negotiations to play Ichabod Crane in Hollow. The British actor turned heads last summer as he stepped into the furry boots of He-Man in Masters of the Universe; he can currently be seen in the WWII sports drama The Mosquito Bowl. The movie is based on the debut novel of horror filmmaker Lindsey Anderson Beer (Pet Sematary: Bloodlines), which is set to be released in fall 2027; Beer will also direct the film and adapt her own novel. Sweeney will executive produce the movie via her Honey Trap production company, which recently landed a first-look deal with Sony Pictures.

Who Is Ichabod Crane?

Created by Washington Irving in the 1820 short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod Crane is a shy and awkward schoolteacher from Connecticut who comes to the rural town of Sleepy Hollow in the 1790s. He sets his sights on local beauty Katrina Van Tassel, much to the displeasure of local jokester Brom Bones. After Bones frightens partygoers with the eerie tale of the Headless Horseman, a spectral Hessian mercenary who was decapitated by cannon fire in the Revolutionary War, Crane has a terrifying encounter with the Horseman (implied to be a disguised Bones) and never returns. The character has sometimes been reimagined as a more proactive hero in modern retellings of the tale, including the Tim Burton movie Sleepy Hollow, in which he was played by Johnny Depp, and the supernatural TV series of the same name, which starred Tom Mison.

Hollow is in development; no release date has yet been announced. 

 

via Collider