LOS ANGELES, April 18 — Having played Beverly Marsh in 2017 horror It and the lead in March’s wholesome mystery Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase, Sophia Lillis is playing the heroine in fairy-tale retelling Gretel and Hansel, now announced for January 2020.
After Sophia Lillis’s involvement was announced in October 2018, Gretel and Hansel still with MGM subsidiary Orion, now has a full principal cast as well as a January 31, 2020 release date.
Newcomer Sammy Leakey will play Hansel opposite Lillis, with South Africa’s Alice Krige (Thor: The Dark World, The OA) and Australia’s Jessica De Gouw (Arrow, Underground) both as Holda, perhaps the story’s witch figure, and Charles Babalola of The Legend of Tarzan and British detective serial Bancroft as The Hunter.
The 2020 feature film version of Hansel and Gretel looks like it will take a horror turn, with Osgood Perkins, director of The Blackcoat’s Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House at the helm.
Based on the classic European folk tale about a brother and sister, lost in the woods, who are captured by the wicked witch with a house made from sweet-tasting foods, Gretel and Hansel comes from the pens of Perkins and TV comedy writer Rob Hayes (The Stephen K. Amos Show, Chewing Gum).
Lillis can next be seen in September’s It: Chapter Two and has signed up for Madagascan drama The Burning Season with Naomi Watts. — AFP-Relaxnews
