Guillermo del Toro Wraps Production on Psychological Thriller ‘Nightmare Alley’

Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro has wrapped shooting on his next project, Nightmare Alley, which stars Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Colette, Rooney Mara, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins and Ron Perlman. Disney-owned distributor Searchlight Pictures has yet to reveal a release date, but co-screenwriter Kim Morgan confirmed that production had recently ended on Instagram. 

Nightmare Alley, which is based on William Lindsay Gresham’s novel, follows an ambitious young carny, played by Cooper, with a talent for manipulation. He meets and hooks-up with a female psychiatrist, played by Blanchett, who turns out to be even more dangerous than he is. This film was first adapted into a 1947 noir film directed by Edmund Goulding. 

Del Toro talked about the actions taken to keep production safe in an IndieWire Live conversation last summer. “We reacted super fast, we proposed the studio to stop as opposed to being asked to stop,” said del Toro. “That saved us. Nobody to my knowledge in the cast or the crew got coronavirus. We were roughly 45 percent in. We were literally in the middle of a great scene. We went to lunch and talked to the studio and when we came back we said, ‘Everybody leave your tools and leave now.’” 

The director has also been hard at work on his upcoming adaptation of Pinocchio for Netflix, which Blanchett and Perlman will also star in.

Joseph Stanger: I’m a senior at Central Washington University majoring in Digital Journalism with a minor in Cinema Studies. I have a deep interest in the ethics and impact of journalism, I pay way too much attention to current events and I've seen far too many movies. I also enjoy video games, biking, and spending time with my pet rabbit Agnes.
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