The thriller genre has seen an uptick in releases over the last number of years. It is arguably the most popular genre in film today and a new upcoming mystery thriller The Tutor looks to be another compelling addition to the genre’s expansive library. Reported exclusively by Deadline, Noah Schnapp, Victoria Justice, Garrett Hedlund, and Jonny Weston have all joined the project. Jordan Ross is directing the film from a screenplay written by Ryan King.
The film follows “a professional tutor (Hedlund) who, after being given an unexpected assignment at a remote manor, finds himself battling his disturbed student’s (Schnapp) obsessions that threaten to expose his darkest secrets and unravel a carefully crafted persona.” While this sounds like the plot of your average modern thriller, when you put the words “dark secrets” in front of anything, most people are compelled to learn what rabbit hole that leads down. Troubling teacher/student relationships have been explored in many films and TV shows over the years, not just in the thriller genre. Due to this, it will be very interesting to see what angle this film chooses to take with this storyline and what it could possibly add to this setup to differentiate itself from other similar stories.
The film is being produced by Joey Stanton, Robert Ogden Barnum, Eric Binns, and Christopher Kopp. King, Ekaterina Baker, Greg Thompson, Luke Daniels, Allan Pao, Kyle Stroud, Nadine De Barros, Ali Jazayeri, Rick Sasner, and David Gendron are also executive producing the project. Vertical Entertainment and Three Point Capital are financing the film, while Fortitude International are currently selling the international rights.
Out of the four actors, Schnapp and Justice are probably the most well-known. Schnapp hit it big with his starring role as Will Byers on Netflix’s mega horror series Stranger Things. He is set to reprise that role once again in the show's fourth season this May. The actor has also appeared in The Peanuts Movie, Abe, Hubie Halloween, and Bridge of Spies. Justice rose to fame on Nickelodeon where she starred in the hit shows Zoey 101 and Victorious. Since then, she has starred in films like Trust, Fun Size, Summer Night, and Afterlife of the Party. Hedlund on the other hand has starred in such films as Tron Legacy, Triple Frontier, Unbroken, Troy, and Eragon while West has appeared in Taken 3, John Dies at the End, and the Divergence franchise.
The Tutor is in production now in Birmingham Alabama, so we will probably hear more news on the project soon. This includes more cast members being added and a release date.