Margot Robbie to Star in, Produce Bank Robber Thriller ‘Dreamland’ (Exclusive)
Robbie’s banner Lucky Chap Entertainment is producing the Dust Bowl saga with Automatik, one of the companies behind Jeff Nichols’ ‘Loving.’
Margot Robbie is set to star in Dreamland, a thriller that will be directed by Sundance winner Miles Joris-Peyrafitte.Robbie will also produce under her Lucky Chap Entertainment banner. Also producing are Lucky Chap’s Tom Ackerley and Josey McNamara, as well as Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Rian Cahill of Automatik.
Brad Feinstein of Romulus Entertainment is producing and financing Dreamland, which Sierra/Affinity will introduce at this year’s Cannes Film Market. CAA and WME are co-repping domestic sales.
Written by Nicolaas Zwart and on the 2015 Black List, Dreamland is set in the 1930s, amid the devastation of the Dust Bowl. The story follows a 15-year-old boy on his quest to capture a fugitive bank robber and collect the bounty on her head, all with the goal of saving his family farm from foreclosure.
Against all odds, he beats out the FBI and the local police to find her, only to discover that she’s far more than what the authorities claim her to be. Robbie will play the bank robber.
The producers are hoping to bring a balance of nostalgic beauty and gritty realism to the proceedings as well as a balance between a sense of romanticism and a sense of violence.
Automatik, run by Kavanaugh-Jones and Fred Berger, has been involved in the making of Jeff Nichols’ dramas Midnight Special and Loving, as well as La La Land. It is currently in preproduction on Finale, Chris Weitz’s thriller about the hunt for Nazi Adolf Eichmann.
Joris-Peyrafitte made waves when he directed, co-wrote, scored and acted in As You Are, a teen drama set in the 1990s that won the special jury prize at the 2016 Sundance Film.
Robbie, who last year starred in both Suicide Squad and Legend of Tarzan, has two movies, both true life dramas, in the can: Miramax’s I, Tonya and Fox Searchlight’s Goodbye Christopher Robin. Her Lucky Chap banner produced Tonya and is developing several studio projects, among them Bad Monkeys for Universal and Fierce Kingdom for Warner Bros.
Robbie is repped by CAA, Management 360, Aran Michael Management and Jackoway Tyerman. Joris-Peyrafitte is repped by WME, Grandview Management and attorneys Steve Warren and Huy Nguyen. Zwart, who has written on CW’s Riverdale, is repped by WME and Corrine Aquino at Rain Management Group.