Just like how his brother Alexander Skarsgård had to go through a body transformation for his leading role in Robert Eggers' Viking epic The Northman, Bill Skarsgård (IT) had to change his own physique for his upcoming action-thriller, Boy Kills World. The transformation is on full display in a still from the film revealed by Entertainment Weekly in an exclusive first look.
The new image shows Skarsgård's new look as he stands in the middle of the jungle in a fighting stance. In the upcoming film directed by Moritz Mohr, Skarsgård plays the character Boy, a deaf mute that is described as having a "vibrant imagination." After his family is murdered, Boy is trained by a mysterious shaman played by Yayan Ruhian to suppress those child-like fantasies in order to become a one-man killing machine. Speaking to EW, Skarsgård talked about the journey of transforming his body and the training with action coordinator Dawe Szatarski. "This was an incredible journey into something completely new for me. I had two months to learn how to pretend how to fight well. Dawe Szatarski is a wizard, and he might've just pulled it off. The abs I credit to another wizard, my main man Valdemar Fredriksson. I just showed up, slightly late."
As the quote says, Skarsgård underwent a martial arts training course with Szatarski, who is a renowned action and fight designer that had trained under the late-great Brad Allan, for two months. A rep for the film told EW that the pair developed "a unique movement style," going to say that Skarsgård's height and size would "help make him an unconventional new-age action star," a rep for the and that "You've never seen an actor move like this in a movie."
Boy Kill World has a script that was written by Arend Remmers and Tyler Burton Smith (Child's Play). Producers of the film include Sam Raimi and Zainab Azizi via Raimi Productions as well as Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment, Nthibah Pictures’ Simon Swart and Wayne Fitzjohn, and Alex Lebovici of Hammerstone Studios, with Stuart Manashil and Dan Kagan also producing. Ventaro Film’s Reza Brojerdi and Andrew Childs will serve as executive producers. in addition to Skarsgård and Ruhian, the film is also set to star Jessica Rothe, Michelle Dockery, Brett Gelman, Isaiah Mustafa, Nicholas Crovetti, Cameron Crovetti, Quinn Copeland, Andrew Koji, Sharlto Copley, and Famke Janssen.
Boy Kills World does not have a released date currently announced.