Samara Weaving may be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but she isn’t leaving her horror roots behind. Deadline reports that the Ready or Not star has been cast alongside Succession‘s Nicholas Braun in Hivemind, a new environmental thriller about a terrifying new breed of killer wasps. Irish filmmaker Ciarán Foy, whose credits include Sinister 2, Eli, and The Haunting of Bly Manor, is directing the movie.
Hivemind is currently filming in Dublin. The story follows a small-town group of authorities who find themselves dealing with the evolution of a new breed of killer wasps and must work together to prevent the threat from developing into a deadly global outbreak.
The movie comes from Thunder Road and Badlands, with Peter Gaffney (Yeti, Don’t Go in the Water) writing the screenplay. Amazon MGM Studios plans to release Hivemind internationally on Prime Video.
For Weaving, Hivemind represents another opportunity to dive into horror and genre filmmaking at a particularly busy point in her career. The actress was recently cast as Emma Frost in Marvel’s upcoming X-Men movie, adding a major comic book movie role to a filmography that already includes plenty of memorable genre performances.
Weaving became a horror favorite with her starring roles in The Babysitter and Ready or Not. She recently returned for Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, and has also appeared in projects like Over Your Dead Body and Carolina Caroline. Her next movie may put her in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Hivemind proves that Weaving isn’t abandoning the horror and thriller territory that helped make her a genre fan favorite.
Braun is best known for playing Cousin Greg on HBO’s Succession, earning three Emmy nominations for the role. He recently appeared in Amazon MGM’s The Sheep Detectives and will next be seen in Ruben Östlund’s The Entertainment System Is Down. I first saw him in Kevin Smith’s Red State.
Behind the camera, Foy brings a good amount of horror experience to Hivemind. His feature debut, Citadel, premiered at SXSW and won the festival’s Midnighter Audience Award. He subsequently directed Sinister 2 and the Netflix horror movie Eli, as well as episodes of The Haunting of Bly Manor and Sweet Tooth.
Hivemind is produced by Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, and Diarmaid McGrath for Thunder Road; Scott Strauss for Badlands; Macdara Kelleher and John Keville for Wild Atlantic Pictures; Adam Rodin; and Gaffney. The project is backed by Renegade Capital, with Jon Shiffman and Andrew Schwartzberg serving as executive producers.
There is currently no announced release date for Hivemind, but with Weaving, Braun, and Foy attached, the killer wasp thriller could turn out to be a fun creature feature. Does this one sound interesting to you? Let us know by leaving a comment below.