It kind of feels like Netflix might dominate the Academy Awards when they roll around in… April of next year. Many studios have offloaded a lot of their big-budget Oscar-bait films to the service in exchange for some short-term cash (Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 being a big recent example) and the streaming service has also a bunch of its own original projects waiting in the wings (Mank, anyone?). One unexpected addition to that line-up was Ben Wheatley‘s Rebecca, starring Armie Hammer and Lily James, which is an adaptation of the classic Daphne du Maurier novel that basically defines the term “gothic romance” for an entire generation of people.
Wheatley’s an incredibly fun director, and he already gave Hammer one of the greatest roles of his career so far in Free Fire, so we can’t wait to see what happens here. Netflix dropped a trailer for the project earlier on Tuesday, and man, it’s pretty fucking hot and creepy! Our favorite combo!
Peep it:
Here’s a synopsis:
“After a whirlwind romance in Monte Carlo with handsome widower Maxim de Winter (Armie Hammer), a newly married young woman (Lily James) arrives at Manderley, her new husband’s imposing family estate on a windswept English coast. Naive and inexperienced, she begins to settle into the trappings of her new life, but finds herself battling the shadow of Maxim’s first wife, the elegant and urbane Rebecca, whose haunting legacy is kept alive by Manderley’s sinister housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (Kristin Scott Thomas). Directed by Ben Wheatley (‘High Rise,’ ‘Free Fire’) and produced by Working Title Films (‘Emma,’ ‘Darkest Hour’), ‘Rebecca’ is a mesmerising and gorgeously rendered psychological thriller based on Daphne du Maurier’s beloved 1938 gothic novel.“
Rebecca hits Netflix on October 21. Also, holy shit, we didn’t even mention that Alfred Hitchcock directed basically the definitive adaptation of this film with Laurence Oliver and Vivian Leigh back in the day until just now! We kind of wanted to let this film, which, according to Wheatley, is an adaptation of the novel and not a remake of Hitch’s masterwork, stand on its own. Ironic, huh?