Last week, Ari Aster’s Hereditary became A24’s highest-grossing film, earning over $77 at the global box-office, besting Lady Bird and Moonlight. Even before the success of his directorial debut, the company planned to team with the director on his follow-up. “It’s an apocalyptic breakup movie,” Aster recently said describing Midsommer. The film will follow a young couple’s vacation to a Swedish village, where they discover the residents’ peculiar traditions and rituals. As one of the main characters carries pain from a recently deceased loved one, these rituals become cloaked in a sense of dread.
With production now set to kick off in Hungary this month, the cast has been confirmed. Florence Pugh (Lady Macbeth) will lead the project, joined by Jack Reynor as they head to Sweden to visit a mid-summer festival in a friend’s rural hometown. Reynor’s Detroit co-star Will Poulter is also part of the film, which captures “an idyllic retreat that quickly devolves into an increasingly violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult, Collider and Variety report. The ensemble cast also includes Vilhem Blomgren, William Jackson Harper, Ellora Torchia and Archie Madekwe.
Pugh will next be seen in Park Chan-wook’s John le Carré adaptation The Little Drummer Girl, a six-part miniseries coming to AMC this November. Also starring Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Shannon, see the first images and synopsis below.
Blurring the fine lines between love and hate; truth and fiction; and right and wrong; The Little Drummer Girl weaves a suspenseful and explosive story of espionage and high-stakes international intrigue. Set in the late 1970s, the pulsating thriller follows Charlie (Pugh), a fiery actress and idealist whose resolve is tested after she meets the mysterious Becker (Skarsgård,) while on holiday in Greece. It quickly becomes apparent that his intentions are not what they seem, and her encounter with him entangles her in a complex plot devised by the spy mastermind Kurtz (Shannon). Charlie takes on the role of a lifetime as a double agent while remaining uncertain of her own loyalties.
As we await his next film, watch Aster’s early shorts here and listen to our full discussion of his debut below or on iTunes.