Scott Cooper, Guillermo del Toro Hoping to Team for Supernatural Thriller “Antlers”

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Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has been telling everyone on the press tour for his latest film The Shape of Water that he’ll be taking a good nine-month break from directing. And yet, he’s just attached to himself to direct a new project, and he’ll also be producing a new supernatural film called Antlers for Fox Searchlight with Scott Cooper (Black Mass, Hostiles) in talks to direct.

Antlers is written by Henry Chaisson & Nick Antosca, based on Antosca’s short story The Quiet Boy, with Searchlight buying the supernatural horror spec about a teacher who finds out a troubled student’s father and younger brother are hiding a dark and deadly secret. She takes the student under her wing to help him fight off the supernatural horrors that derive from that secret.

Del Toro will be producing the film with his Blade 2 writer David Goyer, Miles Dale and Kevin Turen. Antosca will exec. produce.

If the deal goes through, Antlers will be Cooper’s first foray into the horror genre, having covered crime in films like Out of the Furnace and Black Mass, plus his newest film Hostiles, starring Christian Bale is a straight-up Western. Cooper is repped by CAA, and he already has history with Searchlight, who distributed his film Crazy Heart, for which Jeff Bridges won an Oscars.

At the same time, del Toro has attached himself to write and direct a remake of Fox’s 1947 film Nightmare Alley, also for Searchlight. It might not be his next directing job though, as he still needs to write the script with his co-writer Kim Morgan.

Tyrone Power starred in the original film playing a corrupt young con-man who pairs with a female psychiatrist for a mentalist act used to take people’s money, but eventually turning on each other. Nightmare Alley would be a very different type of film for del Toro who has mainly been working in the horror and fantasy realm throughout his career.

Repped by WME and Exile Entertainment, del Toro still has a lot on his plate with numerous projects in development, plus he’s producing the upcoming Legendary sequel Pacific Rim: Uprising. Del toro’s latest film The Shape of Water has been racking up nominations on the awards circuit with 14 Critics Choice Awards nominations and seven Golden Globes nods.

Other potential films del Toro could tackle next include a Fantastic Voyage remake and a movie based on Disney’s The Haunted House, both which have been in development for quite some time.

This story was first reported by Variety.

 Edward Douglas | East Coast Editor