Disney’s Searchlight arm has bought rights to Claire Foy’s horror-thriller “Dust,” four months after the project was unveiled at the Cannes Virtual Market.
Foy will portray a woman who becomes increasingly traumatized in 1930s Oklahoma amid the region’s horrific dust storms and convinces herself that a mysterious presence is threatening her family. She then takes extraordinary measures to protect them.
Variety reported at the Cannes market in June that the film would be set around a remote farmhouse and would be fairly self-contained, with just a small number of starring roles and a minimalist aesthetic.
Will Joines and Karrie Crouse are set to direct from a script that Crouse wrote. The screenplay was developed at the Sundance Writer’s Lab.
“Winter’s Bone” producer Alexi Madigan and her Mad Dog Films are producing with Lucas Joaquin of Secret Engine. CAA Media Finance and UTA Independent Film Group are co-representing North American rights. Mad River International is handling international sales and introduced the project at the Cannes market.
Foy won an Emmy, a Golden Globe and two SAG Awards for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s “The Crown.” She is developing an adaptation of the Charlotte McConaghy novel “Migrations” and will star and exec produce. Variety reported on Oct. 5 that Foy and James McAvoy were attached to star in the upcoming English-language remake of the French thriller “Mr Son” for STXfirms. She will next star opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in the biopic “Louis Wain.”
Foy is repped by UTA and Independent Talent Group. Joines and Crouse are repped by CAA.