First look images have arrived for The Punishing, the Icelandic-set supernatural horror film starring John Boyega and Cara Delevingne, as the project makes its market debut at Cannes.
Film News Blitz’s RC Stacey reports on the chilling news.
A STAR-STUDDED DESCENT INTO SCANDINAVIAN FOLKLORE
As reported by Deadline, The Punishing is written and directed by Chris Sparling and is set on a remote Icelandic island “where a man miraculously recovers from a terminal illness, but his wife soon discovers the land’s healing powers come at a terrifying price.”
The project is described as being rooted in Scandinavian folklore, which, for anyone familiar with that particular tradition of dark, elemental storytelling, is a very promising sign indeed.
Spooky Pictures, Redwire Pictures, and Tiki Tane Pictures are behind the project, with Boyega also serving as a producer alongside Steven Schneider, William Shockley, Tom Brady, Luke Daniels, and Andrew Corkin.
The film is fully financed by Redwire and Tiki Tane and is currently in post-production.
Ignite is representing international sales and launching dealmaking at the Cannes market, with WME Independent and UTA Independent Film Group handling domestic rights.
SPARLING: A WRITER WITH FORM
For those who may not immediately recognise the name, Chris Sparling is the writer behind one of the most impressively contained thrillers of the past two decades.
Buried (2010), starring Ryan Reynolds as a man who wakes to find himself trapped in a coffin underground, is a masterclass in sustained, claustrophobic tension, delivered almost entirely within a single location.
The fact that Sparling both wrote and directed The Punishing suggests a filmmaker confident enough to steer his own vision from page to screen.
The remote Icelandic setting, a land that can both restore and destroy, feels like a natural evolution of that instinct for suffocating, inescapable dread.
BOYEGA AND DELEVINGNE: AN INTRIGUING PAIRING
John Boyega has spent much of the post-Star Wars era making exactly the right kinds of choices.
His breakout role in Joe Cornish’s alien thriller Attack the Block remains one of the great genre performances of its generation, having steadily built a CV that prioritises quality over franchise safety.
His involvement here as both lead and producer signals a real personal investment in the material.
Cara Delevingne, meanwhile, is no stranger to genre. She starred in Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story: Delicate alongside Kim Kardashian and Emma Roberts.
She arrives at The Punishing while also making waves at Cannes this year with Club Kid, a separate UCR title that has generated considerable buzz at the festival. It is shaping up to be quite a Cannes for Delevingne.
Together, the two make for an unexpectedly compelling lead pairing, and the first look images, courtesy of Deadline, do little to dampen the anticipation.
Are you excited to see what Sparling, Boyega, and Delevingne have in store?
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