Anya Taylor-Joy is in negotiations to reunite with The Witch director Robert Eggers for a remake of classic horror Nosferatu.
The 21-year-old actress, who broke out with her starring role in Robert’s psychological thriller in 2015, is reportedly in talks with executives at Studio 8 to star in his second feature film.
According to Variety, Robert, who will write and direct the project, had been hoping to work with Anya in the early stages of development but her full schedule, following her most well-known role in M. Night Shyamalan’s 2016 horror Split, meant this wasn’t possible.
It will be a remake of the 1922 silent movie, which followed vampire Count Orlok of Transylvania as he becomes enamored with a real estate agent’s wife while hunting for a new residence in Germany. It was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and attempted to get around copyright infringement by changing vampire to Nosferatu and Count Dracula to Count Orlok.
However, Stoker’s family sued and the court ordered all copies of the film to be destroyed, but it survived and has gone on to be regarded as a cinematic masterpiece.
Robert’s remake, which will be produced by director Chris Columbus and his daughter Eleanor, will not be the first. Renowned German director Werner Herzog made Nosferatu the Vampyre in 1979.
The director confirmed this would be his next project in December (16), when he admitted to IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast that he never intended to follow The Witch up with a remake of a classic.
“It feels ugly and blasphemous and egomaniacal and disgusting for a filmmaker in my place to do Nosferatu next,” he said. “I was really planning on waiting a while, but that’s how fate shook out.”
Anya has a number of projects on her slate before she can begin production. She is currently filming X-Men installment The New Mutants, in which she plays a Russian sorceress, a follow-up to Split titled Glass, and the TV adaptation of 2014 Jessie Burton bestseller The Miniaturist.
