Bradley Cooper just got a Hela great co-star in Guillermo del Toro‘s Nightmare Alley.
Two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett is in talks to join the A Star Is Born actor in the film, which is based on William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel of the same name, EW has learned.
Cooper landed the male lead after Leonardo DiCaprio was circling the project earlier this year. This marks one of Del Toro’s next directorial effort after winning the best director and best picture Oscars for The Shape of Water in 2018.
Nightmare Alley, which was previously made into a film in 1947 with actor Tyrone Power, is the story of a carnival worker who becomes a con man mentalist. Then the woman who’s part of his routine turns the tables.
Del Toro, who’s been producing a lot lately between Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Pacific Rim: Uprising, wrote the script with Kim Morgan. Production on the film, from Fox Searchlight, is aiming to start production in early 2020.
It’s another intriguing project for Blanchett, who seems like she’s been having a grand ol’ time jumping from a Marvel movie villain in Thor: Rangarok, one eighth of Ocean’s 8, a witch in The House with a Clock in Its Walls, and the voice of snake Kaa in Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle.
She’ll be seen next as Bernadette Fox in Where’d You Go, Bernadette, in theaters this August.
