A24’s adaptation of one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous stories just landed another major leading player. Deadline reports that Léa Seydoux has joined the cast of The Masque of the Red Death, based on the short story of the same name and starring Academy Award winner Mikey Madison.
Billed as a “revisionist and darkly comic take” on the 1842 story, A24’s version of The Masque of the Red Death is written and directed by Charlie Polinger, whose teenage psychological thriller The Plague just hit theaters across the country. No details about the roles either Madison or Seydoux will play have been released, though presumably the story will follow the bones of Poe’s original, about a group of nobles shielding themselves from a deadly plague with a secret party, only to have their revelry disrupted by an evil figure who forces them to confront reality.
But even though we may not know who she’s playing, this isn’t Seydoux’s first brush with horror. In 2015, she starred in one of Bugonia director Yorgos Lanthimos’ first major films, The Lobster, before going on to collaborate with David Cronenberg, starring in 2022’s Crimes of the Future alongside Viggo Mortensen and Kristin Stewart. Madison is no stranger to the genre either, having lent her voice to the 2019 animated Addams Family movie, as well as featuring in the 2022 Scream film.
A24’s Masque of the Red Death is not the first time this particular Poe story has been adapted for the screen. Among other lesser versions, the story was also transformed for the screen in 1964, directed by Roger Corman and starring Vincent Price as Prince Prospero. That version also incorporated subplots from lesser known Poe tales, as one of Corman’s eight films based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe.
The Masque of the Red Death is produced by Julia Hammer and Erik Feig for Picturestart, alongside James Presson, Lucy McKendrick, and Polinger. No release date for the film has been announced, but stay tuned to FANGORIA for more information as it arises.
