After scaring the pants off us throughout Showtime’s Penny Dreadful, Eva Green is heading back into spooky, supernatural territory, with news that she’s in talks to topline Tim Burton’s upcoming Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.
Adapted from the novel of the same name by Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children follows a teenage boy who travels to a mysterious island following his grandfather’s unexpected death. There, he finds a group of orphans with extraordinary powers, individuals who his grandfather told him stories of but whom the boy never believed to be real. After meeting the orphans’ enigmatic headmaster (Green), he works to protect his new acquaintances from creatures out to destroy them.
As a fan of the novel, I’m excited to hear that Green is coming aboard. She’s a terrific character actress, and her ability to unsettle and beguile instantaneously has this supernatural-skewing project off to a great start. Burton is also a great choice to direct, for reasons that should be obvious, and the pair working together again is definitely cause for celebration.
Dark Shadows may have not been Tim Burton’s finest hour, but no one who saw that film could deny Green’s appeal in it. Since then, she has been proving herself a professional at all things wacky and wonderful, with Penny Dreadful being just one example. But whenever I see Green in anything nowadays, I do think back to Dark Shadows and shake my head a little at how her collaboration with Burton could have borne such lackluster fruit. Riggs’ novel was a phenomenal read, though, so chances seem high that this reunion will turn out a lot better than Burton and Green’s first team-up.
X-Men: First Class writer Jane Goldman adapted the script, which is also exciting news. Goldman has experience both with adapting beloved material and with writing social misfits – those two familiarities should allow her to deliver a satisfactory version of Riggs’ novel.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will open its doors on July 31st, 2015.
