EXCLUSIVE: Sean Kaufman (The Summer I Turned Pretty) and Adam Silver (The Diplomat) are new additions to Other Mommy, director Rob Savage’s supernatural horror film for Universal and Atomic Monster that yesterday announced eight-year-old Arabella Olivia Clark as its lead.
Character details are under wraps. As previously announced, Jessica Chastain, Jay Duplass and Dichen Lachman will also star.
Based on the book Incidents Around the House by Bird Box‘s Josh Malerman, Other Mommy centers on eight-year-old Bela (Clark), who lives in a home strained by her parents’ troubled marriage, only to see her life further upended by a sinister entity she calls “Other Mommy.” When this malevolent presence emerges from her closet, persistently asking “Can I go inside your heart?”, Bela refuses. But soon, Other Mommy’s manifestations become increasingly aggressive, threatening the safety of Bela’s family.
The film is being produced for Universal by Atomic Monster/Blumhouse in association with Spin a Black Yarn. Succession‘s Nathan Elston adapted the screenplay. James Wan is producing, with Michael Clear, Judson Scott, Macdara Kelleher, Savage, Malerman and Ryan Lewis exec producing. Alayna Glasthal is the executive overseeing the film for Atomic Monster.
The film falls under supernatural horror, one of the 24 thriving subgenres identified in a Blumhouse study conducted with Sage Outcomes, which surveyed over 2,000 horror fans and experts, as discussed at the company’s inaugural Business of Fear event.
Breaking out with his turn as Steven in Prime Video’s hit YA series The Summer I Turned Pretty, which returned for its third season yesterday, Kaufman will also be seen coming up in the fifth season of Apple TV+’s sci-fi drama For All Mankind. Additional TV credits include Manifest, FBI: Most Wanted, and Law & Order: SVU. He is repped by CESD, Untitled Entertainement, and JTWAMM.
Silver earned a SAG Ensemble nomination for his turn in Netflix’s hit political thriller The Diplomat and has also been seen in a scene-stealing role opposite Ben Whishaw in Netflix’s Black Doves, as well as Apple’s WWII series Masters of the Air and Netflix’s Eric and 3 Body Problem. Cutting his teeth in both Chicago and Los Angeles’ theatre communities before expanding into television and film, he most recently appeared on stage in New York, starring opposite Ralph Fiennes in David Hare’s Straight Line Crazy. He is represented by The Artists Partnership and Untitled Entertainment.
