With four Alien movies under her belt, Sigourney Weaver has more experience fighting monsters than just about anyone. But in A Monster Calls, Weaver will be involved in a battle against a monster of a very different sort: terminal illness.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Weaver has signed on to star opposite Felicity Jones and Liam Neeson in Juan Antonio Bayona’s big screen version of Patrick Ness’ children’s fantasy novel, which won both the Carnegie Medal and the Greenaway Medal in 2012.
In Ness’ story, a 13-year-old boy is visited every night at 12:07 by a tree monster who tells him stories. In between the stories, we learn that the boy’s mother is undergoing chemotherapy and that the boy is being tormented by bullies at school.
Neeson has signed on to play the monster while Jones will play the dying mother and Weaver is on board as the grandmother.
Bayona’s previous film was the Oscar-nominated The Impossible.
A Monster Calls is slated for release on October 14, 2016.