Ari Aster is continuing to assemble the cast for Scapegoat, his upcoming film for A24, with Deadline reporting that Ella Purnell (Fallout), Caleb Landry Jones (Dracula), and Samba Schutte (Pluribus) have signed on.
Character details are being kept under wraps, but Purnell, Jones, and Schutte will be joining Scarlett Johansson (The Exorcist: Martyrs), Jacob Elordi (The Dog Stars), and Jude Law (The Wizard of the Kremlin). There’s been plenty of speculation about Scrapegoat, ranging from it being a sci-fi romance to a doctor who operates on a famous influencer or simply a traditional drama. Aster is directing from a script he wrote.
Whatever the film winds up being, I’m sure folks will have some thoughts, as the reactions to his last two movies—Beau is Afraid and Eddington—have been hugely divided, and that’s putting it mildly.
Aster made a splash in the horror scene with his debut feature film, Hereditary, and although he’s released three movies since—Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid, and Eddington—that first film has remained his most popular and critically acclaimed.
“In some ways, it’s really irritating,” Aster joked earlier this year. “I’m trying to get better. Every film I make I actually feel kind of prouder of than the last, and yet it’s like diminishing returns as far as their reception is concerned. I’m thrilled. You want something to last. It’s great. More people come up to me and say they love this film than any of the others. Midsommar I guess is the other.“
He’s even written a prequel to Hereditary, but it remains to be seen if he’ll actually make it. “I wrote a prequel to this,” Aster said. “It never feels like the right time. It’s a prequel, not a sequel so I don’t know where this goes.“ The 2018 movie starred Toni Collette as Annie Graham, a grieving miniature artist who uncovers disturbing secrets about her recently deceased mother. A prequel could explore the life of Annie’s mother, or perhaps go back even further into the cult of King Paimon.