According to Deadline, Golden Globe nominees Daisy Edgar-Jones (Where the Crawdads Sing) and Diego Calva (Babylon) along with Emmy nominee Will Poulter (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3) have officially signed on to star in the upcoming film adaptation of On Swift Horses, based on Shannon Pufahl’s drama novel of the same name. In addition, rising stars Jacob Elordi (Euphoria) and Sasha Calle (The Flash) have also been cast to join the drama.
On Swift Horse will be directed by Daniel Minahan from a screenplay written by Bryce Kass. The 2019 novel is set during the 1950s centering around two people trying to find their place in the world. It tells the story of a newly-married woman Muriel, who’s fond of the racetrack, and her brother-in-law Julius, who goes to Las Vegas to test his fate.
The film is produced by Peter Spears, Mollye Asher, Tim Headington, and Theresa Steele Page for Ley Line, with FirstGen Conent’s Michael D’Alto also producing. Executive producers are Kass, Alvaro Valente, Christine Vachon, Pamela Koffler, Nate Kamiya, David Darby, Randal Sandler, Claude Amadeo, Chris Triana, Jennifer Westphal, and Joe Plummer.
“A lonely newlywed and her wayward brother-in-law follow divergent and dangerous paths through the postwar American West. Muriel is newly married and restless, transplanted from her rural Kansas hometown to life in a dusty bungalow in San Diego. The air is rich with the tang of salt and citrus, but the limits of her new life seem to be closing in: She misses her freethinking mother, dead before Muriel’s nineteenth birthday, and her sly, itinerant brother-in-law, Julius, who made the world feel bigger than she had imagined. And so she begins slipping off to the Del Mar racetrack to bet and eavesdrop, learning the language of horses and risk,” the book’s official synopsis reads.
“Meanwhile, Julius is testing his fate in Las Vegas, working at a local casino where tourists watch atomic tests from the roof, and falling in love with Henry, a young card cheat. When Henry is eventually discovered and run out of town, Julius takes off to search for him in the plazas and dives of Tijuana, trading one city of dangerous illusions and indiscretions for another. On Swift Horses is a debut of astonishing power: a story of love and luck, of two people trying to find their place in a country that is coming apart even as it promises them everything.”
Production on the film adaptation has already begun in Los Angeles.
