Hugh Grant Heads for Horror Movie ‘Heretic’

Scott Beck and Bryan Woods have scripted and will direct the new movie, which is mostly shrouded in mystery but will be released via A24.

(L to R) Hugh Grant plays Forge in 'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' from Paramount Pictures and eOne.

Hugh Grant, a man not normally known for starring in horror movies –– please, no jokes about ‘Nine Months’ or ‘Mickey Blue Eyes’ –– is taking a rare dip into scary territory for a new film.

He’s boarding ‘Heretic’ which has a script from, and will be directed by, ‘A Quiet Place’ duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods for arthouse movie specialists A24.

Andie MacDowell and Hugh Grant backstage during the live ABC telecast of the 95th Oscars® at the Dolby® Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, March 12, 2023.

(L to R) Andie MacDowell and Hugh Grant backstage during the live ABC telecast of the 95th Oscars® at the Dolby® Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, March 12, 2023.

What’s the story of ‘Heretic’?

With the details and deals still all coming together, ‘Heretic’ is still mostly a mystery at this point. Still, Deadline has heard that it is rumored to center on two young women of faith who are lured into a cat-and-mouse game in the home of an eccentric man.

Grant, unless he’s really taking a chance this time, is most likely playing the eccentric. We can well imagine him switching from charming to creepy.

It’s the latest project from Beck and Woods, who last co-wrote and co-directed sci-fi movie ‘65’, which saw Adam Driver as an astronaut from another planet crash-landing on Earth during the time of the dinosaurs.

A24 might appear an unlikely landing spot for their new outing, but the company has never shied away from genre, and saw ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ take off to box office and Oscar success.

When he’s not busy being snarky and obscure on red carpets, Grant has been enjoying something of a renaissance in his career of late, thanks partly to a vanity-free and sometimes showstopping turn as preening performer Phoenix Buchanan in 2017’s ‘Paddington 2’ and his switch to a more villainous side with the likes of Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Gentlemen’ and ‘Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre’. He also tapped into a darker aspect in HBO miniseries ‘The Undoing’ playing the cheating husband of Nicole Kidman.

Hugh Grant in StudioCanal's 'Paddington 2.'

Related Article: Movie Review: ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’

More recently, he was smooth-talking conman Forge Fitzwilliam in ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’, chewing the scenery and proving to be one of the highlights of a movie not short of them.

The fun career choices are continuing as later this year, he’ll be seen as, of all things, an Oompa-Loompa, opposite Timothée Chalamet in Warner Bros.’ origin story prequel film ‘Wonka’. That movie, due out on December 15th, was directed by ‘Paddington’s Paul King.

In keeping with the quirkiness, another movie awaiting release (this time via Netflix) is Jerry Seinfeld’s ‘Unfrosted’ the story of rival cereal companies vying to create what became the Pop-Tart.

Grant will also be back on HBO with ‘The Regime’, a drama with satirical underpinnings starring Kate Winslet that follows the unravelling of an authoritarian regime. That one is set to arrive next year but doesn’t have a specific date yet.

Like ‘The Regime’, it’s too early for ‘Heretic’, but we can’t imagine it much before late 2024 at the earliest, particularly with the writers’ strike still in full swing.

Regé-Jean Page, Sophia Lillis, Michelle Rodriguez, Chris Pine and Hugh Grant from Paramount's 'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' at San Diego Comic-Con 2022.

(L to R) Regé-Jean Page, Sophia Lillis, Michelle Rodriguez, Chris Pine and Hugh Grant from Paramount's 'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' at San Diego Comic-Con 2022.