Coming off the ten Oscar nominations for The Favourite, director Yorgos Lanthimos is going back to his creepier roots. THR reports Lanthimos is in talks to direct an adaptation of Richard Brautigan’s book, The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western, becoming the latest filmmaker to attempt pulling this one off.
Just the genre-bending title should tell you this is perfect for Lanthimos, who blends styles and tones with every film. The story, set in 1902 Oregon, follows two gunmen who are hired by a woman named Magic Child to destroy a “monster” living in some ice caves underneath her house. If only it were even that simple.
So yeah, this promises to be very weird, and the characters are just begging for Lanthimos to have some fun with casting. Colin Farrell, who has worked with him on The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, would be amazing as one of the two gunslingers. Perhaps Rachel Weisz, also a Lanthimos favorite, could play Magic Child and her twin sister Miss Hawkline?
Previous attempts to adapt Brautigan’s novel have fallen by the wayside. Jeff Bridges and Harry Dean Stanton were attached to one that would’ve been helmed by Harold and Maude’s Hal Ashby. Tim Burton later made a go of it with Clint Eastwood and Jack Nicholson. Sadly, that one went nowhere, too.
