Scarlett Johansson is in early talks to star in the Focus Features drama “Reflective Light,” sources tell Variety.
Art photographer Gregory Crewdson is making his directing debut with Marc Platt producing along with Platt Productions’ Jared LeBoff. The film is an adaptation of the 2014 Carla Buckley novel “The Deepest Secret,” which Crewdson and partner Juliane Hiam have adapted.
The pic follows a teenage boy who suffers from a malady that makes him gravely allergic to sunlight. If Johansson’s deal goes through, she would play his mother, so devoted to her son’s care that she has alienated the rest of their family, creating an oddly sustainable nocturnal lifestyle for him at the expense of her own well-being. When a neighborhood girl goes missing, the balance that kept them afloat begins to unravel.
Focus acquired the rights to the movie right before this year’s Cannes Film Festival and hopes to start production next year.
The film would mark a change of pace for Johansson, who has been busy in action and comedy movies including this year’s “Ghost in the Shell” and the Sony comedy “Rough Night.” She can be seen next in “Avengers: Infinity War” and is also lending her voice to Wes Anderson’s animated “Isle of Dogs.”
She is repped by CAA and LBI Entertainment.
