Daisy Ridley to Star in “We Bury The Dead”

Daisy Ridley has found her next project – a survival thriller from Zak Hilditch, director of Stephen King’s adaptation of 1922.

Ridley, who plays Rey in the Star Wars sequel trilogy and returns to the franchise in the next film, will star in We Bury the Dead.

The film is a story about grief, loss, and the undead. Ridley plays Ava, a desperate woman whose husband is missing in the aftermath of a catastrophic military experiment. Hoping to find him alive, Ava joins a “body retrieval unit,” but her search takes a chilling turn when the corpses she’s burying start showing signs of life.

Filming will begin in February 2024 in western Australia. Screen Australia, Screenwest, Lotterywest, the WA Regional Screen Fund, and Gramercy Park Media fully finance it. As such, the production complies with the terms of the MEAA / SAG-AFTRA agreement as part of Global Rule One. 

We Bury The Dead is written and directed by Hilditch and produced by The Penguin Empire’s Kelvin Munro and Grant Sputore, who produced I Am Mother, and Ross Dinerstein of Campfire Studios, who produces Netflix’s upcoming Players.

The film will be co-produced by Gramercy Park Media with the company’s Joshua Harris and Mark Fasano serving as producers, and Nathan Klingher and Ford Corbett executive producing.

Neon and UTA Independent Film Group are launching international and domestic sales at AFM. Umbrella Entertainment will distribute the film theatrically in Australia.

Next up for Ridley, she stars in The Marsh King’s Daughter, starring opposite Ben Mendelsohn for director Neil Burger; Young Woman and the Sea from director Joachim Rønning; and Sometimes I Think About Dying, in which Ridley both starred and produced. 

“We’re thrilled to join forces with Zak and Campfire on this project,” said Sputore. “Zak is uniquely gifted in making movies that are just as moving as they are terrifying. Bringing one of his projects to our home state of Western Australia is especially exciting.”

“Zak is an immensely talented storyteller, and we’re ecstatic to reteam for our third feature together,” added Dinerstein. “With the brilliant Daisy Ridley onboard and Zak’s spectacularly unnerving and poignant script, we can’t wait to dig into production and bring this film to audiences.”

Hilditch said, “Having Daisy play the role of Ava is an absolute dream come true. She embodies the perfect mix of vulnerability, grit, and determination that Ava exudes throughout the film.”

Ridley is repped by CAA and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern. Hilditch is repped by Independent Artist Group, Sugar 23, and Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz. The Penguin Empire is repped by Navigation Media Group. Campfire Studios is repped by UTA.

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Daisy Ridley To Star In High-Wire Action-Thriller ‘Cleaner’

Star Wars actor Daisy Ridley is going sky-scraping again as we can reveal she is set to star in vertiginous action-thriller Cleaner from Casino Royale and GoldenEye filmmaker Martin Campbell.

The timely action-thriller, set in present-day London, will see radical activists take over an energy company’s annual gala at the Shard – the tallest skyscraper in Western Europe – seizing 300 hostages to expose the corruption of the hosts. Their just cause is hijacked by a zealous extremist within their ranks, who is ready to murder everyone in the building to send his anarchic message to the world. It falls to an ex-soldier turned window cleaner, Joey Locke (Daisy Ridley) – suspended 90 stories up outside the building – to save those trapped inside and take down the killers, while also finding a way to bring the corrupt energy moguls to justice.

Anton is launching the hot Cannes package for buyers who are becoming spoiled for choice in this market.

Pic is being financed and produced by Greenland outfit Anton with Sebastien Raybaud and Callum Grant as producers. The shoot is due to commence in late summer 2023 with talks underway about filming locations (no word yet whether the project will film at the Shard). Anton will handle world sales with all rights available. CAA Media Finance is co-repping domestic.

Martin Campbell said: “Cleaner is a nail-biting thriller, unique and original in both its characters and its setting. Much of the film takes place on the side of the Shard – hundreds of feet up in the air – and I want the audience to be up there with Joey in a stomach-churning, vertiginous experience. There isn’t a more intuitive and powerful actress than Daisy right now to help us do just that. The majority of my movies have been thrillers and Cleaner is one of the best I’ve ever read.”

Producer Sebastien Raybaud commented: “It has always been the intention to make European action-thrillers that are sophisticated, provocative, and fun at the same time. Independent films from our region with heart and identity, but which also provide a unique and accessible proposition for contemporary audiences globally. With Martin and Daisy taking the lead, and a script that is so unpredictable and authentic, we have everything we need to do just that.”

Ridley recently completed the noir thriller Magpie, based on a story she developed. She will next be seen in The Marsh King’s Daughter and Young Woman And The Sea. As recently confirmed, Ridley will also be reprising her role as Rey in one of the Star Wars: New Jedi Order movies with Steven Knight writing and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy directing.

As we previously revealed, Anton will also be in Cannes with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s film, Breakout, directed by Scott Waugh. The slate also includes Thirty-Three from Niels Arden Oplev, which will star Mark Strong and Paula Beer.

Ridley is repped by CAA and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern. Campbell is represented by CAA.

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Daisy Ridley Confirmed to Return as Rey in Star Wars film set 15 years after Rise of Skywalker

It’s official Daisy Ridley is coming back to the Star Wars universe.

Fans erupted in delight at the Star Wars Celebration in London when Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy announced that not only are three new movies in the pipeline, but one of them will see Ridley return as Rey too.

Ridley will reprise her titular role in a movie led by Ms. Marvel director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, which takes place 15 years after The Rise of Skywalker ends.

While most of the details have been kept under wraps about the project, it seems she will play an integral role in rebuilding the new Jedi world order.

In a surprise appearance at the convention, the actor took to the stage to share her gratitude to director Obaid-Chinoy for bringing her back into the fold in a galaxy far, far away.

Ridley said “I am so…so…thrilled to be at the celebrations with you all in London. Thank you! Sharmeen for having me back, I’m very thrilled to be continuing this journey.”

Head to The Fan Carpet for more from Europe’s 2023 Star Wars Celebration.

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Better Liar: Daisy Joins Prime Video Thriller Series

Daisy Ridley has landed a new TV role in the Prime Video series The Better Liar.

The Star Wars actress will lead the show, based on the book by Tanen Jones, and executive produce, according to Deadline.

The story follows a woman who hires a lookalike to try and conceal her sister’s death and claim her inheritance. However, the deception opens up a web of dangerous secrets.

True Blood’s Raelle Tucker is adapting the Better Liar.

Ridley has a busy slate coming up, with the actress teaming up with her husband Tom Bateman on the new movie Magpie.

“I had the idea of [it], and my husband has written [it], and I’m starring in [it] of course,” she told AP in January of the project. “And we have an amazing cast and an amazing crew, and it’s very exciting. Yes, so we will be shooting for a month, fast.”

“This was also really a good experience in how to achieve so much with very limited money and very limited time, when you’re thoughtful and everyone clubs together, and it’s very intentional,” the star added.

The actress has also been earning positive reviews for the new film Sometimes I Think About Dying, and she will be starring in movies The Marsh King’s Daughter and The Woman and the Sea, as well as the TV series The Christie Affair.

Meanwhile, a few months ago Ridley addressed a possible return to the Star Wars franchise, telling IMDb at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival: “I mean, I’m open to a phone call – I am looking for employment.”

The Better Liar will stream on Prime Video, with a release date yet to be confirmed.

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Daisy to Headline “Sometimes I Think About Dying”

Daisy Ridley continues to dabble in a variety of genres following her success in the sci-fi realm of galaxies far, far away. However, per a Deadline exclusive, her next role could be unlike anything we’ve seen her in before.

According to the report, Ridley is set to star in and produce the independent dramedy, Sometimes I Think About Dying. The Star Wars Alum will step into the shoes of the film’s on-edge lead, Fran, who—as the title suggests—kinda has a thing for thinking about how she’ll bite the bullet. That all changes the day Fran meets a new co-worker. A co-worker who makes the thought of living just a bit more complicated.

The film is adapted from Stefanie Abel Horowitz’s 2018 short film of the same name and inspired by Kevin Armento’s 2013 play Killers. While both creators have returned to pen the film’s script alongside Katy Wright-Mead—who co-wrote the short and starred as the original—the directorial duties for Sometimes I Think About Dying fall to Rachel Lambert. This marks Lambert’s second film in the director’s seat following her directorial debut, In The Radiant City. The film wrapped production earlier this year and has no determined release date at this time.

Ridley showcases a range of talent since nabbing her breakout role as Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and its subsequent sequels. Her supporting turn in Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express saw her embrace plenty of mystery-driven camps. Moreover, her performance as the titular character in Ophelia offered her room to grow in the period-piece sandbox that so many actors crave. Before we see Ridley infatuate herself with death’s last caress, she’ll also star in Neil Burger’s upcoming revenge drama, The Marsh King’s Daughter.

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Daisy Joins New Sci-Fi Thriller “Mind Fall”

Daisy Ridley, best known for her role as Rey in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, is set to star in the upcoming sci-fi project, “Mind Fall”.

After charming audiences as Rey in Disney and Lucasfilm’s Star Wars sequel trilogy, Daisy Ridley has lined up a new sci-fi project. Ridley will return to her sci-fi, otherworld roots as the star of the upcoming futuristic thriller titled “Mind Fall”.

“Mind Fall” will be directed by Mathieu Kassovitz with a script from Graham Moore. The film’s complex story will take place in near-future London, where the most sought-after drug on the black market is memories, which are physically removed from one person’s brain and implanted into another’s using new advanced illegal technology.

Deadline reports Star Wars’ Ridley will play the top trafficker Ardis Varnado, who makes a living trafficking memory implants on the black market. The memories or so-called “mems’ bind to the subconscious, which makes it difficult for a person to distinguish between their own memories and someone else’s. Meanwhile, Ardis gradually deals with her struggling addiction to the “mems” she sells and eventually becomes wrapped up in the recent murder case of one of her clients that forces her to clear her own name.

The French filmmaker and actor Kassovitz is best known for directing the award-winning black and white drama feature La Haine and starring in other acclaimed films such as 2001’s Oscar-nominated Amélie. Kassovitz’s other English-language-directed films Gothika (the supernatural horror film starring Halle Berry) and Babylon A.D. (the science fiction action film starring Vin Diesel) were met with poor reviews from critics, and the upcoming “Mind Fall” project will mark Kassovitz’s first time directing in roughly a decade.

With a talent like Ridley in the lead role and writer like Moore, who won the 2015 Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar and WGA award for the Morten Tyldum-directed/Oscar-winning historical feature The Imitation Game (which also starred in Doctor Strange’s Benedict Cumberbatch in a career-best performance), this may just be the bounce back film Kassovitz desperately needs.

After her breakout role as Rey in the Star Wars sequel trilogy (a trilogy that began with much promise but ultimately divided fans due to the jumbled storylines and characters), Ridley went on to appear in films like Murder on the Orient Express, Ophelia, and Peter Rabbit (as a voice actor). But similar to Kassovitz, she is also looking to bounce back after most recently starring opposite Tom Holland in Doug Liman’s disastrous Chaos Walking, a film that underwent countless delays. Ridley will also star in Neil Burger’s (Limitless, Divergent) upcoming psychological thriller The Marsh’s King, a film that is already in post-production.

Mind Fall is currently in early development.

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Star Wars: Daisy Regularly Texts Rey’s Mother

While the newest Star Wars trilogy may have bowed out with a mixed legacy overall with fans and critics, few can dispute those films captured at least some of the magic of the original films, especially with 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens. In that film, Daisy Ridley’s Rey proved to be a protagonist the audience can generally get behind, and her performance in all three films is one of the high points of the saga.

However, one of the more obscure characters from the trilogy apparently left a big impact on Ridley.

A controversial aspect of the trilogy is the question of Rey’s heritage. Many inferred from what they interpreted as allusions in The Force Awakens that Rey may have a Skywalker or perhaps even a Kenobi in her lineage. This theory seemed to be squashed with the second installment. In The Last Jedi, Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren aka Ben Solo claims that Rey’s parents were nothing more than junk traders who sold their child for drinking money. This origin was later reversed in The Rise of Skywalker with the reveal that she’s actually the granddaughter of Ian McDiarmid’s Emperor Palpatine aka Darth Sidious, the big bad of the original trilogy.

But Rey’s mother, played by Jodie Comer, has proved to have left a lasting impression on Ridley, despite a short appearance in the third film.

Speaking to Grazia, Ridley recently said Comer is one of the people she continues to stay in touch with to this day after the trilogy wrapped.

“My god I was so sad. I spent a lot of time crying, I really felt like I was grieving something. They were my people for so many years! John [Boyega] and I met when we were both twenty-one, we were so young. We started this thing together in our early twenties and now I’m twenty-nine. But we all keep in touch, even though John is the busiest man in the world. I went for breakfast with Kathy Kennedy the other day which was so nice. Jodie [Comer] and I text all the time. It was such a wonderful experience,” Ridley recently told Grazia.

Would you want to see a Star Wars spin-off starring Rey’s mother?

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