Oscar winner Jessie Buckley and her Hamnet co-star Paul Mescal are to reunite in Hold on to Your Angels, the new film from Beasts of the Southern Wild writer-director Benh Zeitlin.
US entertainment trade publication Deadline, which first reported the news, says the film will go into production in February with Brad Pitt's company Plan B among the producers.
Watch: Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal discuss Hamnet with RTÉ Entertainment's Alan Corr in December 2025
Set in Louisiana, Hold on to Your Angels "follows a hell-bound outlaw (Mescal) and a ferocious shepherd of lost souls (Buckley) who fall in catastrophic love as their crumbling bayou paradise drags them under".
Oscar-nominated writer-director Zeitlin said of his next film: "Hold on to Your Angels is the most impossible love story I've ever witnessed - an outlaw romance for the end of America, set on the crumbling edge of South Louisiana.
"I've been dreaming of telling it since its hero, Pam Harper, walked into an audition for Beasts of the Southern Wild 17 years ago.
"It's a love letter to an endangered way of life - and a rallying cry for empathy across a fractured planet."
Plan B added: "Benh Zeitlin absolutely stunned us and the world at large with the cosmic sorcery of Beasts of the Southern Wild.
"With Hold on to Your Angels, Benh has set his powerful mix of intense realism, myth, and magic against the large scale of an epic love story.
"This is a writer-director with a vision for the ages and we could not be more proud to be by his side to make this film with Jessie and Paul."
Hold on to Your Angels will be introduced to buyers at the Marché du Film, which will take place as part of the Cannes Film Festival from 12 to 20 May.
