Movies
‘Doctor Jekyll’ – New Image of Eddie Izzard in Hammer’s Modern Twist on Classic Horror Tale
Eddie Izzard stars in the upcoming Doctor Jekyll from Hammer Studios, and our friends over at Fangoria have shared an exclusive first-look image with us this afternoon.
Director Joe Stephenson tells Fangoria, “There’ve been over 100 cinematic adaptations of Stevenson’s novella, but there has never been a trans Dr. Jekyll. There seem to be some assumptions that because Nina is a trans character, we are somehow going to make it about gender. That is not the case; the themes of our film are true to the original work.”
Check out your first look at Eddie Izzard in the new Doctor Jekyll movie below.
As previously announced, Emmy winner Eddie Izzard stars as Dr. Nina Jekyll in the Hammer Studios/B Good Picture Company feature film Doctor Jekyll, a modern interpretation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s iconic novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Scott Chambers co-stars, with Lindsay Duncan, Jonathan Hyde and Simon Callow supporting.
Joe Stephenson, of acclaimed drama “Chicken” and feature documentary “McKellen: Playing the Part” directs, having developed the project with first time writer Dan Kelly-Mulhern.
Doctor Jekyll focuses on a reclusive Nina Jekyll finding friendship with her newly hired help, Rob, played by rising star Scott Chambers, who must work together to prevent Hyde from destroying her life.
The film is currently in post-production in the UK. Stephenson produces the film, with Guy de Beaujeu (Journey’s End) and Liam Coutts (The Good Drug).
Christian Angermayer (Army of Thieves, Filth) serves as Executive Producer.
It’s been eight years since Ari Aster came onto the scene and helped usher in a new wave of horror with Hereditary, one of the rare horror movies from the past ten years that still seems to come up in conversation every single week. And it’s back in the conversation this week, with Ari Aster revealing at an event that he’s already written a prequel to Hereditary!
Ari Aster was on hand at the American Cinematheque for Bleak Week: Cinema of Despair last week, a Los Angeles festival that screened all of Aster’s movies to date. The website Gold Derby reports that Aster revealed the Hereditary prequel script during a Q&A at the event, and you can watch the full Q&A conversation below for confirmation on the website’s report.
“I wrote a prequel to this,” Aster told the crowd, referring to Hereditary. “It never feels like the right time to do it. It’s a prequel, not a sequel so I don’t know where this goes.”
Would a potential Hereditary prequel dig deeper into the mythology of demon king Paimon? Unfortunately, Aster provides no further details on his prequel approach at this time.
Aster said of Hereditary during the same Q&A, “I was just trying to make a really good horror movie.” I think most horror fans would agree that he more than accomplished that goal, and the past eight years have proven that Hereditary is an enduring classic of its generation.
We celebrated the fifth anniversary of Hereditary here on BD back in 2023.
Ron Breton wrote, “Hereditary offers a similar emotional resonance to this new generation of horror – my generation of horror– as movie-goers in the seventies when they first saw Exorcist. Much like Aster’s film, we see the incomprehensible evil wear the face of a young girl; the victim of a raw deal she had no say in, as it tears a family to its core. Sure, both films offer so many terrifying visuals that can make the hair stand up on anyone’s neck – but it also depicts intense relationships and emotions that are tangible. Real. Familiar.”
“In that familiarity lies the uncanny, ready to rear its ugly head and force us to confront thoughts and horrors laying dormant and clawing at our psyche,” Breton continued his 5th anniversary celebration of Hereditary. “And it doesn’t matter if it’s been five or fifty years. These horrors are always there, as we become pawns in its horrible, hopeless machine.”
Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Ann Dowd, and Milly Shapiro star in Hereditary. In the film, “A grieving family is haunted by tragic and disturbing occurrences.”
That’s putting it mildly, eh?!
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