Netflix has picked up the rights to the gothic horror-thriller The Pale Blue Eye. Deadline reports that the streamer spent around $55 million for the movie, which reunites lead star Christian Bale with director Scott Cooper. Bale previously worked with Cooper in the 2013 crime drama Out of the Furnace and again in the 2017 Western Hostiles. The two will both produce The Pale Blue Eye alongside Josh Lesher (Birdman) and Cross Creek’s Tyler Thompson.
Based on the Louis Bayard novel of the same name, The Pale Blue Eye is written by Cooper. Its plot revolves around a series of murders taking place in 1830 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Christian Bale will play a veteran detective who investigates the murders, helped by a detail-oriented young cadet who will later become Edgar Allan Poe. It hasn’t yet been revealed who will be playing the world famous author.
Cooper made his directorial debut with the 2009 movie Crazy Heart, which starred Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Earning universal acclaim, the movie won Bridges the Oscar for Best Actor. The director would follow this up by directing Bale in Out of the Furnace alongside Woody Harrelson, Casey Affleck, and Forest Whitaker. Along with the Bale-starring movie Hostiles, Cooper also helmed 2015’s Black Mass with Johnny Depp as James “Whitey” Bulger. His next movie Antlers, a supernatural horror flick, is scheduled to be released this October.
Some of Bale’s most popular roles from the past include playing Batman in The Dark Knight trilogy, serial killer Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, John Connor in Terminator: Salvation, and British race car driver Ken Miles in Ford v Ferrari. He has also won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his role in The Fighter and garnered additional nominations for his roles in American Hustle, The Big Short, and Vice. Other roles include The Machinist, The Prestige, 3:10 to Yuma, and Public Enemies.
Bale has a couple of other major projects in the works as well. He will play Gorr the God Butcher, the main villain, in the upcoming Marvel sequel Thor: Love and Thunder. He has also been cast in an untitled period movie by David O. Russell as part of an ensemble that includes Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Rami Malek, Zoe Saldana, Anya Taylor-Joy, Mike Myers, and Robert De Niro. Thor: Love and Thunder will be released on May 6, 2022, while the Russell movie doesn’t yet have an official release date.
Over the past several days, Netflix has also picked up two other major acquisitions. The streamer has also paid out millions for the Colin Firth war drama Operation Mincemeat along with a new action-thriller with Liam Neeson and Laurence Fishburne. Official release dates for these movies haven’t yet been announced.
Likewise, The Pale Blue Eye doesn’t yet have a release date. Reportedly, the plan as of now is to begin shooting the movie this fall after Bale wraps filming on his other movie projects. This news comes to us from Deadline.