Someone is emerging from early (filmmaker) retirement, and we might have Cannes topper Thierry Frémaux to thank for it. After a cool volunteer job as the head of the Un Certain Regard jury this summer, Xavier Dolan‘s creative spark was reignited. He has dusted off a project he wrote before the pandemic and is now putting the finishing touches on what will be his ninth feature film—a venture into the horror genre. It’s worth noting that Dolan had a small role in Pascal Laugier’s gore-filled Martyrs before debuting as a director with I Killed My Mother in 2009. This new energy also came ab out from a trio of projects that Dolan has climbed on as an actor.
Set in 1880s France, Dolan revealed on the Sans Filtre Podcast (at the 47:42 mark) that his upcoming project explores themes of fear, failure, and rejection. Curiously, he felt some of these exact sentiments when he moved into the three following features after Mommy in It’s Only the End of the World (2016), The Death and Life of John F. Donovan (2018) and Matthias & Maxime (2019). Dolan is about 20 pages away from finalizing the screenplay and is pleased with its development. He’ll be traveling to the Hamptons to put the final touches on the screenplay. This would be shot in France and would contain a lot of exterior scenes (we bet he’ll re-team with cinematographer André Turpin) — costly production for sure. He is aiming for a fall 2025 shoot — so we are looking at the earliest a 2026 drop.
