There may be no director more embedded in Film Twitter than Guillermo del Toro, who expresses his adoration for cinema–from gems both beloved and lost to history, to championing modern directors from all of the world. So, it should be no surprise, that word has it he’s staging a reunion of the stars from one of Film Twitter’s most enduring favorites, Todd Haynes’ Carol.
With Bradley Cooper set to lead the director’s reimagining of the William Lindsay Gresham-penned Nightmare Alley (which Edmund Goulding turned into a 1947 film) as con man Stanton ‘Stan’ Carlisle, Cate Blanchett has now come on board the film, according to Variety. Collider then broke the news of the impressive supporting cast he’s eying to lock down, including Blanchett’s Carol co-star Rooney Mara, as well as Toni Collette, Richard Jenkins, Willem Dafoe, Michael Shannon, Ron Perlman, and Mark Povinelli.
Production on the vicious rise-and-fall story of mentalists and magicians in a traveling carnival is not kicking off until early 2020 in, so there’s still some time to see if all of these talks go through. But if del Toro gets his dream cast–which seems like an easy proposition after his success with The Shape of Water–Collette would take the co-lead role of psychic Zeena Krumbein, Dafoe may play Zeena’s alcoholic husband (or father, depending if del Toro tweaks the adaptation), Mara would play Molly, who Stan falls for, Perlman would play the strongman Bruno, Jenkins would be one of Stan’s marks, and Blanchett would play Stan’s psychologist.
As we await confirmation on this casting, watch the 1947 film below, and read my thoughts after seeing a nitrate print of it earlier this year here.