Alex Garland, who has had a tremendous last couple of years after directing acclaimed sci-fi films Ex Machina and Annihilation, is temporarily moving away from the sci-fi genre in favour of something those two films hinted at: horror. Garland has signed on to write the haunted house film The Toymaker’s Secret.
The film will mark the directorial debut of his spouse Paloma Baeza, and tells the story of “an American family who moves into an old Victorian house in London and begins to believe it might be haunted”. TriStar has landed the rights for the project, and Baeza said in a statement:
“We couldn’t be more delighted to begin this adventure with TriStar[…]This project will join my love of animation with a live-action world, and it’s fantastic to be bringing this story to life”. Baeza already has a BAFTA award under her belt for her work on Poles Apart, and it will be fascinating to see how her background in animation adds to this project.
It’s unclear where this project fits in with Garland’s schedule, as he’s also set to be working on his new series for FX, titled Devs, which recently received a pilot order and revolves around a young computer engineer, Lily, who investigates the secretive development division of her employer, a tech company based in San Francisco, which she believes is behind the disappearance of her boyfriend.
Both projects sound fascinating, and whichever reaches us first has plenty of potential to blow us away.
#Peace.Love.TheToymakersSecret
