This morning, Deadline announced that Rebecca Hall (The Town, The Gift) has joined the cast of Amazon Studios' forthcoming sci-fi series, Tales From The Loop, from writer Nathaniel Halpern, director Mark Romanek, and Matt Reeves’ 6th & Idaho productions.
Based on the mindbendingly awesome artwork of one Simon Stålenhag, the show - which sounds to be an anthology series of sorts - takes place in a small town situated above a machine known as "The Loop", a mysterious invention designed to "unlock and explore the mysteries of the universe".
If you're unfamiliar with Stålenhag's work, let me show you what it looks like.
As you can see, Stålenhag's work juxtaposes scenes of the familiar with moments of sci-fi spectacle: kids in a field fucking around with some kinda backpack/powerglove combo, a guy carrying in his groceries confronted by the sight of a massive ship floating along the horizon. There's an element of '80s-era Amblin to Stålenhag's art. You look at it, and your brain immediately starts conjuring up stories around the images. You can see why someone would be interested in using these images as the basis for a TV show, or a movie.
That Tales From The Loop is being shepherded to screens by Nathaniel Halpern (who wrote a dozen episodes of FX's outstanding Legion), Mark Romanek (the visionary director behind some of the most iconic music videos ever made, not to mention Never Let Me Go and the wildly undervalued One Hour Photo) and Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Dawn of The Planet of The Apes, the forthcoming The Batman) is truly exciting. If you were assembling a team to transform Simon Stålenhag's artwork into a TV series, this is about the best combination of people you could ask for. And now they've hired Rebecca Hall to star in the thing.
Folks, I cannot tell you how excited we are about Tales From The Loop. There's nothing further to share at this time (much less a release date), but you can bet your sweet ass I'll be keeping a close eye on this one as it works its way through production, and we'll keep you informed as further updates roll in. Stay tuned.