French actress Léa Seydoux has joined Mikey Madison in The Masque of the Red Death, A24’s re-imagining of the creepy Edgar Allan Poe story from filmmaker Charlie Polinger.
Julia Hammer and Erik Feig are producing for Picturestart with James Presson and Lucy McKendrick.
While A24 is mum on the official plot but does describe the project as wildly revisionist and darkly comedic. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that Madison is playing twin sisters in a story that sees a mad prince take in the noble class into his castle while a plague devastates the peasantry. The story sees a long-lost twin, hidden among the lower class, enter the castle and into a decadent world of orgies, opium, power schemes, revenge and decapitations.
Seydoux will play a scheming lady-in-waiting who is conniving her way to the top.
A24 is distributing worldwide. Polinger is executive producing. Production is due to take place in Hungary starting in February.
A Palme d’or Cannes Film Festival winner and a five time Cesar Award nominee, Seydoux is known for ping-ponging between French cinema and Hollywood outings. The latter ranges from her first Hollywood production, Inglourious Basterds, to blockbusters Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol and Spectre, one of two Bond movies in which she appeared. Her last major Hollywood role was in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two, in which she played Lady Margot Fenring.
This year, the actress is will be seen starring in Oscar-winning screenwriter Arthur Harari’s The Unknown, Marie Kreutzer’s Gentle Monster alongside Catherine Deneuve, and the Zellner Bros’ Alpha Gang with Cate Blanchett and Dave Bautista.
Seydoux is repped by Agence Adequat and UTA.
