Keanu Reeves, Jim Carrey, and Jason Momoa join Ana Lily Amirpour’s artsy cannibal flick
Iranian-American director Ana Lily Amirpour has amassed a group of fine young cannibals to star in her new dystopian flesh-eater, The Bad Batch. Offbeat Elysium heartthrob Diego Luna and model/actress Suki Waterhouse join Keanu Reeves, Jim Carrey, and Game Of Thrones star Jason Momoa in the savage wasteland love story, set in Texas.
The film is expected to be a hard turn from Amirpour’s breakout hit, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, the expressionistic black-and-white vampire film that earned her a cult following at Sundance in 2014. Skilled at weaving dark beauty and notes on popular culture with highly stylized junkies and hookers, she’ll bring her exacting eye to the much-anticipated Bad Batch, potentially the most artsy cannibal flick since Delicatessen.
Preferring esoteric character descriptors to actual names—the girl in A Girl is simply called The Girl—Amirpour follows the trend in The Bad Batch. Saving Reeves the headache of wondering if he’s awake or still dreaming, he’s been cast as The Dream, joined by Carrey as The Hermit, and Zack Snyder’s new Aquaman as Miami Man. On the more pedestrian side, Waterhouse is called Arlen, and Mexico City-born Luna gets the most red-blooded American moniker so far, Jimmy.
Amirpour’s writing The Bad Batch, like she did with A Girl, and teaming up with VICE and Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures to produce the film. The Bad Batch will be shopped at the Cannes Film Festival, where maybe—just maybe—we’ll finally get to find out what Jim Carrey tastes like. Best guess: rubber. Production on The Bad Batch starts in April.