Nicole Kidman To Star, Justin Kurzel To Direct ‘Mice;’ Aussie Package Produced By Blossom, Bruna Papandrea’s Made Up Stories & Thirdborn

EXCLUSIVE: The team behind Nine Perfect Strangers and The Undoing — Blossom Films and Made Up Stories – have put together another solid film that Nicole Kidman will star in for director Justin Kurzel.

They’ve teamed on a feature film adaptation of Mice, a debut novel by Gordon Reece. The producers will partner with the production company Thirdborn, made up of Kurzel, Shaun Grant and Nicole O’Donohue. Grant will write the script; he and Kurzel teamed for the Cannes-winning Nitramand and the upcoming TV series The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

Blossom Films’ Kidman and Made Up Stories’ principal Bruna Papandrea will produce alongside Blossom’s Per Saari, Made Up Stories’ Steve Hutensky and Jodi Matterson and Thirdborn’s Kurzel and Grant. Jeanne Snow of Made Up Stories will exec produce with Thirdborn’s Nicole O’Donohue and Harriet Warner.

In Mice, Shelley and her mother are pushed to their limits, confronting their moral convictions and the line between right and wrong in the face of bullying, violence, and fear. The novel was published by Viking in the U.S. and Macmillan in the UK in 2011.

Said Blossom and Made Up Stories in a statement: “We were so taken with Gordon’s book – it is one of those stories that gets under your skin and stays there. We have been a fan of Justin and Shaun’s work for a long time and we are thrilled we have found the perfect story to come together on. We are so excited to be bringing this collaboration into the world.” 

Said Thirdborn: “We are thrilled to partner with Made Up Stories and Blossom Films to bring Gordon Reece’s terrifying novel, Mice, to the screen.  It is exciting to be developing a horror story and to have the opportunity to work with Nicole in this genre.”

Said Reece: “The thought of an actress as staggeringly gifted as Nicole Kidman teaming up with Australia’s most daring and original director on the adaptation of Mice is hugely exciting. I’ve no doubt their collaboration is going to make for electrifying cinema that we’ll be talking about for years.”

Reece is repped by Debbie Golvan of Golvan Arts Management and Intellectual Property Group; Kurzel is Kate Richter of HLA Management, CAA and Sloane Offer; Grant is represented by Kathryn Fleming of the Fleming Agency.

Blossom Films and Made Up Stories are currently shooting The Last Anniversary for Binge, and recently started principal photography on season 2 of Hulu and Prime Video’s Nine Perfect Strangers, both are adaptations of Liane Moriarty bestselling novels.