Scarlett Johansson, Sebastián Lelio Team for Apple, A24’s Genre Bender ‘Bride’ — First Details
Oscar-winning filmmaker Sebastián Lelio has set up his next project at A24, “Bride,” a genre-bending film set to star Scarlett Johansson. Lelio, whose “A Fantastic Woman” at Sony Pictures Classics won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2018, previously teamed with A24 on “Gloria Bell.” “Bride” is also the latest collaboration between A24 and Apple, who together are this year releasing Sofia Coppola’s “On the Rocks” in theaters and via streaming on Apple TV+.
Johansson will also produce “Bride,” which is co-written by Lelio with Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo. The film centers around a woman designed by an obsessive and brilliant entrepreneur to be the ideal wife. But things go awry when she rejects her maker, and she’s forced to flee her confined existence and into a world that sees her as a monstrous other. Along the way and on the run, she discovers her true identity, surprising power, and the strength to reclaim herself. The film is also produced by Jonathan Lia of These Pictures.
“Bride” sounds along the lines of Johansson’s other, recent sci-fi pictures, such as Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin,” where she starred as an alien succubus also on a journey of self-discovery, and Spike Jonze’s “Her,” where she provided the disembodied voice of a futuristic dating app opposite Joaquin Phoenix. Plus, she starred as the super-powered title character in Luc Besson’s “Lucy” and in the whitewashed remake of “Ghost in the Shell.” She will next be seen in Marvel and Disney’s “Black Widow,” now set for release on May 7 of next year after many a pandemic-related date push. The film was first slated to open on May 1, then November 6, before moving into 2021 entirely alongside other Disney projects like “West Side Story.”
“Bride” director Sebastián Lelio’s other projects include “Gloria,” the 2013 Chilean drama he remade in English as “Gloria Bell” with Julianne Moore in 2018. He also helmed the stolen-hours lesbian romance “Disobedience,” set in the Orthodox Jewish community and starring Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams, in 2017. His trans drama “A Fantastic Woman” made history when it became the first Chilean movie to take home the foreign Oscar.
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