Out of the Furnace and Hostiles are both great movies, so the prospect of Scott Cooper and Christian Bale working together again has been a tantalising one. That third collaboration is now almost here, in the form of the historical mystery The Pale Blue Eye. Bale co-stars this time with Harry Melling, Gillian Anderson and Robert Duvall, and the first trailer has just arrived.
The film is an adaptation of Louis Bayard's novel, which revolves around the attempt to solve a series of murders that took place in 1830 at the US Military Academy at West Point. Bale plays veteran detective Augustus Landor, who investigates the killings. He's assisted by a fastidious cadet with a disdain for the military and a penchant for poetry. That cadet’s name is Edgar Allan Poe.
Melling plays Poe, and the rest of the insanely starry cast includes Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, Harry Lawtey, Simon McBurney, Hadley Robinson, Timothy Spall, Joey Brooks, Brennan Cook, Gideon Glick, Fred Hechinger, Matt Helm, Jack Irving, Steven Maier and Charlie Tahan.
The Pale Blue Eye is getting a limited cinematic release on 23 December, and will arrive on Netflix on 6 January 2023. Bayard's novel is published in the UK by John Murray's Baskerville imprint, should you care to hit your local bookshop in the meantime.