Netflix have dropped their first look at Christian Bale in Scott Cooper’s gothic murder-mystery The Pale Blue Eye, which hits select theatres on December 23rd, before streaming from January 6th.
According to Netflix, The Pale Blue Eye is a project that Antlers director Cooper has wanted to helm for more than a decade, and tells the a series of murders that took place in 1830 at the United States Military Academy, West Point, and surrounds a young cadet the world would come to know as Edgar Allan Poe, played by Harry Melling. Bale will play the detective tasked with investigating the murders.
The impressive ensemble also includes Gillian Anderson (The Crown), Timothy Spall (Spencer), Robert Duvall (The Judge), Toby Jones (First Cow), Lucy Boynton (Bohemian Rhapsody), Charlotte Gainsbourg (The Accusation) Harry Lawtey (Industry), Simon McBurney (Carnival Row), Hadley Robinson (Moxie), Joey Brooks (Molly’s Game), Brennan Keel Cook (Encounter), Gideon Glick (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Fred Hechinger (The White Lotus), Matt Helm (The Tragedy of Macbeth), Steven Maier (The Plot Against America) and Charlie Tahan (Ozark).
The Pale Blue Eye is the an adaptation of Louis Bayard’s 2006 novel of the same name, and will be the third time that Cooper and Bale have worked together following the underrated one-two of Out of the Furnace and Hostiles. The official synopsis reads:
“At West Point Academy in 1830, the calm of an October evening is shattered by the discovery of a young cadet’s body swinging from a rope just off the parade grounds. An apparent suicide is not unheard of in a harsh regimen like West Point’s, but the next morning, an even greater horror comes to light. Someone has stolen into the room where the body lay and removed the heart.
At a loss for answers and desperate to avoid any negative publicity, the Academy calls on the services of a local civilian, Augustus Landor, a former police detective who acquired some renown during his years in New York City before retiring to the Hudson Highlands for his health. Now a widower, and restless in his seclusion, Landor agrees to take on the case. As he questions the dead man’s acquaintances, he finds an eager assistant in a moody, intriguing young cadet with a penchant for drink, two volumes of poetry to his name, and a murky past that changes from telling to telling. The cadet’s name? Edgar Allan Poe.”
The Pale Blue Eye will be released in select theatres on December 23rd, before streaming on Netflix from January 6th.
