Production continues apace on the Berlin set of Mute, but it appears Duncan Jones’ long-anticipated movie has made room in its cast for one more last-minute addition. Variety reports that Justin Theroux, star of The Girl on the Train and The Leftovers on HBO, has joined the Blade Runner-esque sci-fi pic in an undisclosed role. He’ll round out an ensemble that already boasts Alexander Skarsgård and Ant-Man himself, Paul Rudd.
Rooted in the same fictional universe as Moon, Jones has teased that Mute takes place in the year 2056 and will orbit around Leo Beiler (Skarsgård), a mute bartender making ends meet in a far-future Berlin. A missing girlfriend sends Beiler onto the busting streets of the German capital, where he comes into contact with Paul Rudd’s American surgeon.
“It’s about a guy who was in an accident as a kid,” Skarsgård revealed previously. “He’s ex-Amish, so he lives a very monastic life: he doesn’t have a cellphone or anything like that. He’s left the [Amish] community but he still kinda follows the rules.”
Mute, having simmered on Duncan Jones’ back-burner during Source Code and this year’s Warcraft, will enjoy a fairly big splash when it comes to release, after securing a limited theatrical run via Netflix. Slotting into the same framework as Beasts of No Nation and, potentially, David Ayer’s paranormal drama Bright, Jones described his picture as a “thriller with a very weird tone,” teasing that “it goes very dark, then it also goes very darkly funny. It’s science-fiction urban, so it certainly owes some of its influence to Blade Runner.”
Netflix has scooped up distribution rights to Mute and with production already well underway, we expect Duncan Jones’ passion project to emerge blinking into the sunlight during the latter stages of 2017.