EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winner Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl) and Oscar nominee Michael Fassbender (12 Years A Slave) have been set for key roles in feature Hope, the first project from acclaimed Korean director Na Hong-Jin since 2016 hit The Wailing.

The largely Korean-language film will follow the residents of Hopo Port, where a mysterious discovery is made on the outskirts of the remote harbor town. Before long, the residents find themselves in a desperate fight for survival against something they have never encountered before.

Additional casting and pre-production is underway for a shoot later this year in Korea. We understand husband and wife Fassbender and Vikander will speak English in the film and wanted to take part after being impressed by the director’s previous work. It will mark the second time they’ve appeared together in the same film after The Light Between Oceans.

Hope sounds like it will be cut from similar cloth to the filmmaker’s previous films, all of which have been box office hits. 2016 thriller The Wailing played at Cannes before making $50M globally off an estimated $6M budget. That film charted how a mysterious sickness starts spreading after a stranger arrives in a village. A policeman, drawn into the incident, is forced to solve the mystery in order to save his daughter.

Hope will be produced under Na’s production banner Forged Films. Plus M is handling international sales and UTA Independent Film Group and Plus M are handling North America. The Korean firm is already eyeing additional IP opportunities for the project.

The director said today: “Oftentimes, a person’s goodwill can lead to unintended catastrophe simply because of differences in perspective. My hope for this film is to cinematically capture that phenomenon in a way that has yet to be seen.“

Upcoming, Ex Machina and Tomb Raider star Vikander will star as Katherine Parr opposite Jude Law as Henry VIII in Karim Ainouz’s feature, Firebrand.

Vikander is represented by UTA, Tavistock Wood, Tapestry.

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DEADLINE – Marking the second Oscar-winning actress recruited by director Julie Taymor to play iconic feminist activist Gloria Steinem, Alicia Vikander is in negotiations to star in My Life On The Road, the film based on Steinem’s memoir. Vikander will play Steinem from about age 20-40, during her formative years. Julianne Moore has already signed on to play Steinem as she grew from a reluctant spokesperson of a movement, into a galvanizing symbol for equality. The film focuses on the encounters along the road that helped to shape her.

Academy Award-winning Swedish actress Alicia Vikander is set to lead the voice cast of upcoming stop-motion animation film Moomins and the Winter Wonderland, set for global release in December.

“Growing up, Moomins was my favorite childhood book, and now I can be part of the Moomins family,” Vikander said in a statement. “I’ll be playing both the roles of Little My and Sorry-oo. I am so excited to be part of the Moomins feature Moomins and the Winter Wonderland.”

Stellan Skarsgard also has joined the cast as the voice of Moominpapa and will executive produce.

The Moomins were created by the Finnish writer Tove Jansson in a series of books and comic strips, originally published in Swedish in the 1940s. The iconic fairy tale characters — a carefree family of white, roundish creatures with large snouts that make them resemble lovable hippopotamuses — are a staple of kids culture around the world, thanks to translations of the original books and comic strips, along with television and film adaptations, and even a theme park called Moomin World in Naantali, Finland.

Finish film company Filmkompaniet and Polish animation studio Animoon are co-producing the new project. Los Angeles-based production, distribution and IP management company Global Genesis Group is handling international distribution and sales.

Based on Jansson’s original books, with a screenplay from Małgorzata Więckowicz-Zyla, Piotr Szczepanowicz and Ira Carpelan, Moomins and the Winter Wonderland will be created from existing, vintage footage from original stop-motion Moomins productions co-produced by Jupiter Film and Film Polski in the 1980s.

Alicia Vikander is in talks to star in Ben Wheatley’s hotly anticipated project Freakshift, an all-guns-blazing action thriller about a band of misfits who hunt down and kill nocturnal underground monsters.

Should the deal make, the much-in-demand Vikander would play the lead female protagonist in the cops-vs.-monsters tale. I’m hearing the project is eyeing an August start date, which would fit in with Vikander’s schedule as she’s due to wrap Tomb Raider in early summer.

This is an exciting pairing of a hot European actress with one of the UK’s most sought-after directors. Wheatley’s white-hot Free Fire is getting rave reviews in advance of its UK release at the end of this month, and it’s set to bow in the U.S. on April 21 via A24. That comic shootout stars Brie Larson, Sam Riley, Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Cillian Murphy and Jack Reynor.

Freakshift looks set to be even more badass and more ambitious, with Wheatley directing from script he co-wrote with writing partner Amy Jump. Wheatley’s longtime producer Andrew Starke produces via their Rook Films banner. IMR is handling international rights to the title, with Riverstone Pictures and Film4 financing.

Wheatley’s career has gone from strength to strength since his 2009 Brit gangster breakout Down Terrace. Since then, he’s helmed cult chiller Kill List, horror comedy Sightseers, low-budget A Field in England, an adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s High Rise as well as Free Fire.

Oscar winner Alicia Vikander just added a new hyphen to her considerable list of talents: that of producer. The 27-year-old Swedish actress has launched her own production banner Vikarious Productions along with her London-based agent Charles Collier of Tavistock Wood. The company has set its first feature, Euphoria, with Vikander also set to star alongside Eva Green as sisters in conflict traveling through Europe towards a mystery destination. The project marks the English-language directorial debut of award-winning Swedish writer/director Lisa Langseth, who previously collaborated with Vikander on two Swedish-language pics, Pure and Hotell. Euphoria is a production with Sweden’s B-Reel Films’ Patrik Anderson and Frida Bargo, and starts shooting in the German Alps in early August.

“Euphoria is Lisa’s third film as writer and director. I have worked with her on each of them and I jumped at the chance to do so again,” said Vikander. “It’s a uniquely European approach, enabling me to work with a great Swedish team alongside my colleagues in London. It is a profound story about the journey of two estranged sisters, full of suffering but also full of joy, and squaring up to very important subject matter. It also has compelling female voices and is packed to the rafters with female talent both sides of the camera. All these ingredients made this film the obvious choice for our first film at Vikarious. Charles and I will be developing more films in this space over the next 24 months.”

The news further cements Vikander’s stratospheric rise and is testament to her formidable drive and ambition. Last week, she was confirmed as Lara Croft for MGM, Warner Bros and GK Films in Tomb Raider. The reboot will tell the story of a young and untested Lara Croft fighting to survive her first adventure. Roar Uthaug (The Wave) is directing. MGM and Warner Bros are co-producing the film with MGM overseeing production. They acquired film rights from GK Films, which had previously purchased film rights in 2011 from Square Enix LTD. Graham King is serving as producer.