Claire Foy has signed on to star in the upcoming feature, The Pisces, based on author Melissa Broder’s critically acclaimed novel of the same name. Broder and Gillian Robespierre penned the script that Robespierre will direct. Foy, who is the latest addition to the project, will play a PhD student plagued with writer’s block and romantic obsession.

The Pisces is centered on Lucy’s erotic infatuation with a merman. But as fantastical as that sounds sounds, it is more than just a lady-fishman love story. It’s an exploration of the boundaries between pleasure and possession, fantasy vs. reality and the way women choose the men in their lives.

Archer Gray’s Anne Carey developed the script with Broder and Robespierre. Carey and Amy Nauiokas will produce under their Archer Gray banner.

The novel was published in 2018 by Hogarth Press in the U.S. and Bloomsbury Publishing in the UK. Broder’s latest novel, Milk Fed, which will publish next month from Scribner in the U.S. and in March from Bloomsbury in the UK, and is currently in development with ABC Signature with Liz Tigelaar’s Best Day Ever producing.

Foy will next be seen in Will Sharpe’s Louis Wain alongside Benedict Cumberbatch for Amazon. Most recently, she finished shooting STXFilm’s English-language remake of the French thriller My Son alongside James McAvoy for director Christian Carion. Previously, she earned Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for her performance in Damien Chazelle’s First Man for Universal, opposite Ryan Gosling. In Netflix’s critically acclaimed series, The Crown, she earned her a Golden Globe award, a Primetime Emmy award, two Screen Actors Guild awards, and a BAFTA TV nomination.

Foy is represented by UTA and Oliver Singer at Independent Talent Group. Broder is represented by UTA, Lighthouse Management + Media, Meredith Kaffel Simonoff of DeFiore & Company and the law firm Ginsburg Daniels. Robespierre is represented by UTA and Tara Kole of Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman. Carey and Nauiokas are represented by attorney Victoria Cook at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz.

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Foy will star and executive produce while Cumberbatch will produce with his partners at SunnyMarch.

Claire Foy and Benedict Cumberbatch are teaming up to adapt the timely novel Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy.

The novel was highly sought after by a number of production banners and streamers as it offered a layered female protagonist in a unique setting, but it was Cumberbatch’s shingle, SunnyMarch, that secured the screen rights.

Foy will star and executive produce while Cumberbatch will produce along with SunnyMarch’s Adam Ackland and Leah Clarke.

The book, published by Flatiron Books in August, is both an intimate and epic story of a woman’s search for redemption in a world facing a slow death by climate change.

The tome focuses on a woman named Franny Stone who is tracking what may be the final migration of Arctic terns. When she hustles her way onto a small vessel of misfit fishermen and embarks on an odyssey through stormy seas, her dark past of love, loss, crime and motherhood unfolds in a ode to the wild places in and around us, and the extreme lengths one will go to for the people they love.

“Charlotte has created an utterly unique and beautiful story with a compelling and fascinating woman at its heart,” said Foy in a statement. “I couldn’t be more honoured or excited to help bring this truly remarkable novel to the screen.”

Foy garnered international acclaim, as well as an Emmy and Golden Globe, for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s The Crown. She has wrapped a starring turn alongside Cumberbatch in the upcoming period drama Louis Wain, set for release in 2021. The film was also co-produced by SunnyMarch. It was during that matchup that the two parties decided to find material they could work on together once more.

“We have been looking for an opportunity to collaborate again with Claire on something special that explores big themes and offers Claire an opportunity to portray a character the likes of which we have not seen before,” said SunnyMarch’s Clarke. “We are delighted to have found it in Charlotte’s undeniably cinematic Migrations and the character of Franny Stone. Together we all hope to bring you something very special.”

U.K.-based SunnyMarch, founded by Ackland and Cumberbatch, has three films in the can for a release in 2021. On top of Wain, there is The Courier, a Cold War spy thriller directed by Dominic Cooke and a currently untitled Kevin Macdonald film based on Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s best-selling memoir Guantanamo Diary. The company’s TV arm has a deal with StudioCanal and produced the BAFTA-winning, Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated series Patrick Melrose for Sky and Showtime. 

Migrations was a UTA special as the agency reps McConaghy, Foy, Cumberbatch and SunnyMarch.

McConaghy, who has a degree in screenwriting, is currently writing another novel that intersects her passions of nature and female empowerment, this one about about a biologist charged with using wolves to rewild a landscape and bring a forest back to life. She is additionally repped by Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.

Foy is additionally repped by Independent Talent Group. On top of UTA, SunnyMarch is repped by Conway van Gelder Grant, and Sloane Offer.

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STXfilms has taken the North American and other foreign rights to the remake of the French thriller to be directed by Christian Carion.

Claire Foy and James McAvoy are set to star in My Son, the missing person thriller from ErosSTX Global Corp. and a remake of the 2017 French movie Mon Garçon.

French director Christian Carion will direct the English-language adaptation for STXfilms after he helmed the original French thriller that starred Guillaume Canet as a father who will do anything to get his young son back.

The My Son remake will see McAvoy play the father whose son goes missing, leading him to travel to the town where his ex-wife (Foy) lives in search of answers to the mystery.

To play a man who doesn’t know what’s ahead of him, McAvoy will not be given a script or dialogue. Instead, he will improvise on set as each scene unfolds, as was the case in the original French film, with the rest of the cast and crew for the English language remake being aware of the scenes.

“James will be doing the detective work of the film in real time, on camera, to create real tension for this thriller. We like to support bold and innovative storytelling like My Son, and Claire could not be a more spectacular or exciting choice for this film which is certain to thrill audiences,” Adam Fogelson, chairman of the STXfilms Motion Picture Group, said in a statement as he unveiled the project.

ErosSTX said STXfilms has taken the rights for the English-language remake for North America, the U.K., Italy, Benelux, Latin America, Spain, Australia and China. The film will begin production in early November in Scotland.

The My Son remake will be produced by Carion, Laure Irrman, Vincent Maraval, Brahim Chioua, Rebecca O’Brien and Marc Butan.

Mad River International represents the film’s foreign rights.