Wright will star in ‘In Her Shadow,’ a supernatural horror film from Tea Shop Films, the producer behind Obsession according to reports. Bankside Films is launching world sales ahead of the American Film Market.
Rowan Athale, known for Gangs of London, writes and directs. Wright is also an executive producer through her 3:16 Productions banner. The film is in pre-production.
The premise is a slow-burning nightmare. Wright plays Annie Cutter, an author who gets a late-night call from police: her estranged sister, who recently died, had kept her young daughter locked alone in a dark basement for five years. Annie adopts the girl. Over time, she comes to believe her sister had a reason to fear the child.
Athale, whose 2012 debut feature Wasteland premiered at Toronto and earned BIFA and London Film Festival nominations before he was named a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit, called Wright “one of the foremost actors of her generation.” Stephen Kelliher of Bankside Films, working with Athale for the third time, described the script as “gripping and deeply unsettling” with “a powerful emotional heart.”
Producers include Ed Barratt and Richard Wylie of Public Pictures; Mark Lane of Tea Shop Film, whose credits include 47 Meters Down, Fall and The Surfer; and Kelliher and Sophie Green of Bankside, who also developed the screenplay.
It is a busy stretch for Wright. She returns as Shuri in Avengers: Doomsday, out December 18, is performing in The Story at the UK’s National Theatre, recently made her writing and directing debut with Highway to the Moon, and is set to continue as Shuri in Avengers: Secret Wars.