As Anya Taylor-Joy awaits her first Emmy nomination for The Queen's Gambit, the young actress is nearing a deal to replace Emma Stone in Searchlight's darkly comedic thriller The Menu, which will also star Ralph Fiennes.
Adam McKay and Betsy Koch will produce for Hyperobject Industries, and McKay's Succession collaborator Mark Mylod will direct from a script by Will Tracy and Seth Reiss. Searchlight executives DanTram Nguyen and Zahra Phillips will oversee the project for the studio, which had previously attached Alexander Payne to direct the film.
Set in the world of eccentric culinary culture, The Menu follows a young couple who visit an exclusive restaurant on a remote island where an acclaimed chef (Fiennes) has prepared a lavish tasting menu. Taylor-Joy will play one half of the couple but there will be an entire dining table full of guests, and sources say that the producers have been courting Daniel Radcliffe -- Fiennes' Harry Potter co-star -- to play himself in the film.
Radcliffe has a good sense of humor about himself and goes back a ways with Fiennes, so I wouldn't be surprised to see him enlist in this ensemble, though this project has been in the works for several years, and the script certainly could've changed. What I will say, at this point, is that you can safely expect a well-known celebrity to appear as themselves at this very special dinner.
Besides playing Voldemort in the Harry Potter movies, Fiennes is known for his work in the James Bond franchise and prestige films such as Schindler’s List, Quiz Show, and The Grand Budapest Hotel. Fiennes reprises his role as M in No Time To Die, and he also stars in the upcoming Kingsman prequel The King’s Man.
In addition to The Queen's Gambit, which is surely one of the biggest streaming hits of the past year, Taylor-Joy recently starred in The New Mutants and Emma. She will soon be seen in Edgar Wright's psychological thriller Last Night in Soho as well as Robert Eggers' Viking drama The Northman, George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road prequel Furiosa, and David O. Russell's untitled period picture starring Christian Bale and Margot Robbie. Taylor-Joy is an exciting young star, and if anyone can step into Stone's shoes these days, she stands as good a chance as any of her talented peers. Deadline broke the news of her casting in The Menu.