Jacob Elordi and Lily-Rose Depp Team Up for Cormac McCarthy’s OUTER DARK Adaptation
Jacob Elordi and Lily-Rose Depp are set to star in a new adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s haunting 1968 novel Outer Dark, and it’s shaping up to be a bold, unsettling ride.
Directed by Oscar-winning Son of Saul filmmaker László Nemes, Outer Dark marks his first English-language feature and is set against the bleak backdrop of Depression-era Appalachia.
It tells the story of “a young woman who bears her brother’s baby. The brother leaves the nameless infant in the woods to die, but tells his sister that the newborn died of natural causes and had to be buried.
“The sister discovers this lie and sets out to find the baby for herself. But as both brother and sister separately move through the countryside, three terrifying strangers are on their tails, wreaking death and destruction wherever they appear.”
Described as a “dark fairytale,” the film is expected to begin shooting in 2026. Clara Royer, who previously collaborated with Nemes, co-wrote the screenplay.
Nemes said in a statement: “Since reading Outer Dark the first time, it has been my dream to make it into a film, and to find the appropriate cinematic language that would do justice to Cormac McCarthy’s evocative and cosmological work. Joined by two magnetic actors, I now feel it’s possible.
“The extraordinary source material is a profound inspiration to build a unique world that vibrates with life and death at the same time. An exciting road-movie, a terrible and beautiful journey into the labyrinth of the human soul – this is the ambition I have for Outer Dark.”
The cast is more than up for the material. Lily-Rose Depp is coming off the back of Nosferatu, a gothic horror that earned critical acclaim and became a box office success.
Meanwhile, Elordi, following acclaimed turns in Priscilla and The Narrow Road To The Deep North, is already locked into a stacked slate: he’ll appear next as the monster in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, as Heathcliff in Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, and in Ridley Scott’s upcoming Dog Stars.
Nemes recently wrapped Orphan, his third feature, and he’s also prepping Moulin, a WWII drama about French resistance hero Jean Moulin.
For fans of Cormac McCarthy’s bleak, poetic brand of American gothic, which include No Country For Old Men and The Road, this new film has serious promise.
Source: Deadline