Lean on Pete and Weekend filmmaker Andrew Haigh has gathered Andrew Scott (Sherlock), Claire Foy (Unsane, The Girl in the Spider’s Web), Paul Mescal (Normal People), and Jamie Bell (Fantastic Four) for his next feature film, Strangers, Variety reports. Haigh writes and directs the project, which is loosely based on the award-winning 1987 novel by Taichi Yamada.

Strangers follows screenwriter Adam (Scott) who, one night in his near-empty tower block in present-day London, has a chance encounter with his mysterious neighbour Harry (Mescal) that dramatically disrupts the rhythm of his day-to-day life. As Adam and Harry grow closer, Adam is pulled back to his childhood home where he discovers that his long-dead parents (Foy and Bell) are both not only alive but still look the same age as the day they died – 30 years prior.

In the original Japanese-language novel, the narrator is 47-year-old TV scriptwriter Hideo Harada, who meets a couple who resembles his dead parents; over time, he forms a friendship with them, visiting them often. As his health declines, he realises that they are ghosts sapping his life force. It’s unclear whether the film adaptation will follow a similar supernatural vein.

Production has reportedly begun in the UK, though no release date has yet been set.

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