The next movie being directed by Guillermo del Toro will be Nightmare Alley, an adaptation of the novel by William Lindsay Gresham. Published in 1946, the novel spawned its first feature film just one year later starring Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell, and this new take on the material for Fox Searchlight is being written by del Toro and Kim Morgan.
Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett are attached to star, and Deadline reports today that Rooney Mara (A Nightmare on Elm Street, A Ghost Story) has also joined the cast.
The original novel is described as “a study of the lowest depths of showbiz and its sleazy inhabitants – the dark, shadowy world of a second rate carnival filled with hustlers, scheming grifters, and Machiavellian femmes fatales.” The 1947 movie chronicles “The rise and fall of Stanton Carlisle, a mentalist whose lies and deceit prove to be his downfall.”