Vanessa Kirby has amassed an impressively starry ensemble cast for the first feature out of the gates for Aluna Entertainment, the production company she established in 2021 with former Film4 exec Lauren Dark.
“Night Always Comes,” which Oscar nominee Kirby will lead, is set to star Jennifer Jason Leigh (“The Hateful Eight,” “Fargo”), Zack Gottsagen (“The Peanut Butter Falcon”), Stephan James (“If Beale Street Could Talk”), Julia Fox (“Uncut Gems”), Eli Roth (“Inglourious Basterds,”“The Idol”), Randall Park (“Always Be My Maybe,” “WandaVision”) and Michael Kelly (“House of Cards,” “Jack Ryan”).
Shooting is now underway in Portland on the thriller, which is based on the 2021 novel by Willy Vlautin (who also wrote “Lean on Pete,” adapted and directed by Andrew Haigh). Benjamin Caron (“The Crown,” “Andor”) directs from a script by Sarah Conradt (“Mother’s Instinct”).
As per the logline, “Night Always Comes” follows Lynette, a woman who risks everything to secure a future for herself and her brother by setting out on a dangerous odyssey in Portland, in doing so confronting her own dark past over one propulsive night.
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Kirby and Dark are producing for Aluna Entertainment alongside Benjamin and Jodie Caron for Square Eyed Pictures and Gary Levinsohn and Billy Hines for H2L Media Group. Executive producers are H2L’s Ryan Bartecki and writer Vlautin. Netflix acquired the project as part of a multi-year first-look deal it signed with Aluna when it was first launched.
Speaking to PvNew from Portland, Kirby explained that she came across Vlautin’s novel with Dark during the pandemic.
“It reminded me of so many of my favourite films, like Cassavetes’ ‘Gloria,’ it really had the heartbeat of that, the visceral-ness, and also the Safdie Brothers movies like ‘Uncut Gems’ and ‘Good Times,’ and Sebastian Schipper’s ‘Viktoria,'” she said, adding that she loved the “morally complicated, antihero” protagonists in each of these. “What those movies do is put you at the epicenter of their journey, one that’s really propulsive. But also you’re inside their experience. And to me that’s great cinema, when you’re when you feel like you’re going on a journey with them. So that’s why we loved the book.”
Kirby noted that “Night Always Comes” brings together several of her key creative collaborators of the years, including Caron, who she worked closely with on “The Crown” to create her breakout role as Princess Margaret, and Netflix, who not only were behind “The Crown,” but also backed “Pieces of a Woman,” the 2020 drama that ushered her into leading lady status and landed her an Oscar nomination.
“So it feels very, very meaningful that our first production happens to be this one, which is this women’s story all set over one night, with all her hope and desperation and complexity,” she said. “With this team it just feels incredibly special.”
Fox is repped by framework Entertainment, Envisionary Management, WME, The Initiative Group and Schreck Rose Dapello Adams Berlin & Dunham. James is repped by CAA, Range Media Partners, Viewpoint andJackoway Austen Tyerman. Roth is repped by WME and Goodman, Genow, Schenkman, Smelkinson & Christopher. Gottsagen is repped by manager Gary Ousdahl of Advanced Management, agent Christina Price at Worldwide Artists Group and attorney Eric Feig of Feig Finkel LLP.
