James McAvoy Cast in New Reboot From Blumhouse and Universal

X-Men: First Class and Glass star James McAvoy has been cast in a remake of the 2022 Danish thriller Speak No Evil, bringing the movie to an English-language audience along with Universal Pictures and Blumhouse. The remake will be in theaters in 2024, making for a remarkably quick turnaround, which makes sense given how much buzz the original got in the horror community in spite of not being a Hollywood movie. The movie is set to be directed by James Watkins, who directed the massively successful British horror movie The Woman in Black in addition to a popular episode of Netflix’s Black Mirror.

Watkins just finished the upcoming sixties spy thriller series The Ipcress File, which he directed, and served as showrunner. He also wrote the screenplay for the film, which will be executive produced by Christian Tafdrup, alongside Blumhouse CEO Jason Blum, Paul Ritchie, Jacob Jarek, and Bea Sequeira.

Creating modestly-budgeted horror movies, Blumhouse has generated some of the most profitable and acclaimed movies in the genre for over a decade now. Most recently, Blumhouse and James Wan’s Atomic Monster (the production label behind The Conjuring) inked a deal to work with Blumhouse, creating a relationship that’s likely to create some memorable content for genre fans in the years to come.   

Here’s the official synopsis for the original film:

On a vacation in Tuscany, a Danish family instantly becomes friends with a Dutch family. Months later the Danish couple receives an unexpected invitation to visit the Dutch in their wooden house and decide to go for the weekend. However, it doesn’t take long before the joy of reunion is replaced with misunderstandings. Things gradually get out of hand, as the Dutch turn out to be something very else than what they have pretended to be. The small Danish family now find themselves trapped in a house, that they wish they had never entered.

The English-language remake of Speak No Evil is set to be released on August 9, 2024.