Guillermo del Toro's 'Nightmare Alley' begins filming

Los Angeles: Oscar-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has officially started production on his next movie “Nightmare Alley”.

The film, which del Toro co-wrote with Kim Morgan, is based on the 1946 novel of the same name by William Lindsay Gresham. It will feature Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett in the lead.

“In ‘Nightmare Alley’, an ambitious young carny (Cooper) with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychiatrist (Blanchett) who is even more dangerous than he is,” the official synopsis read.

The movie, a follow-up to the director’s 2017 Oscar-winning film “The Shape of Water”, will also star Rooney Mara as carnival worker Molly, Willem Dafoe as head barker Clem and Ron Perlman as Bruno the Strongman.

Richard Jenkins is also part of the cast and he will portray wealthy industrialist Ezra Grindle.

“I’m inspired and elated to be joined by this brilliant cast. Kim Morgan and I have worked with great passion to bring the dark, raw world and language of William Gresham to the screen and now we are joined by a superb group of artists and technicians to bring it to life,” del Toro said in a statement to IndieWire.

The project hails from Searchlight Pictures.