Jaime King and Natasha Lyonne are to star in and produce “Darlene,” a dark-comedy thriller from director Mary Lambert, best known for helming the 1989 adaptation of Stephen King’s “Pet Sematary.”
King is attached to play the title role of Darlene, a trailer-park influencer whose desperate pursuit of viral fame spirals into murder, abduction and a blood-soaked flight across the South. Lyonne is attached to play Annie.
Written by Chad Darnell, “Darlene” is described as a “high-octane, pitch-black Southern Gothic fever dream — where ‘Raising Arizona’ meets ‘Nightcrawler’ — satirizing generational poverty, terminal narcissism, and the modern hunger for digital immortality.” Production is set for late summer in Louisiana.
The film follows Darlene, a larger-than-life online personality who has built her following around a pregnancy that isn’t real. As her lie begins to unravel, her hunger for validation spirals into something far darker, drawing a devastated father into a desperate search and exposing a culture more obsessed with spectacle than consequence.
King and Emma Comley will produce through Hooligan Dreamers Prods., while Lyonne will produce through Animal Pictures and Lambert produces through Vertical Films.
Best known for her work in both genre filmmaking and music videos, Lambert’s credits include “Pet Sematary” and “Pet Sematary II,” plus “Siesta,” “The In Crowd,” “Urban Legends: Bloody Mary” and episodes of “The Blacklist,” “Arrow,” “Law & Order: SVU” and “Shining Vale.” She also directed some of Madonna’s most iconic and controversial music videos, including “Like a Virgin,” “Material Girl,” and “Like a Prayer.”
Five-time Emmy nominee Lyonne is best known for “Orange is the New Black” and “Russian Doll,” which she co-created with Amy Poehler. Her award-winning Animal Pictures banner is behind projects including “Poker Face,” “His Three Daughters,” “Loot,” and “The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy.”
Hooligan Dreamers Prods., founded by King and Comley, previously produced the horror-thriller “The Resurrection of Charles Manson,” directed by Remy Grillo and starring King and Frank Grillo, as well as “The Room Below” and “Blood Behind Us.
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