After the twisty teen mystery of “Pretty Little Liars,” Marlene King’s next project is going someplace even darker and more dangerous than Rosewood: a basement in an abandoned house, where four teenage girls hold a fifth one captive and plan to bleed the evil out of her.
According to a report from Deadline, King will pen the script for and produce “The Merciless,” a feature film adaptation of the YA horror novel by Danielle Vega. The book won’t be on shelves until June, but Hollywood has snapped up rights in advance of its release, in the hopes of scaring the pants off audiences sooner rather than later.
“The Merciless” tells the story of Sofia, who luckily falls in with the golden crowd of popular (and devoutly religious) girls during her first week at her new school. But as she becomes part of their group, she also, unwittingly, becomes part of a frightening plan: to kidnap their quirky, punky alterna-girl classmate Brooklyn Stevens, and exorcise the demon they know is living inside of her skin.
How? In any way necessary. (And without giving too much away, let’s just say that things go wrong, fast.)
Victoria Justice as Sofia
This film will need a Latina actress with great range in its lead role, and we need to see Victoria in more movies; it’s a win-win.
Isabelle Furhman as Riley
Nobody does manipulative and cunning like Isabelle, who would be perfectly cast as the queen bee leader of the aspiring exorcists.
Amandla Stenberg as Grace
No stranger to creepy content, Amandla was a regular on “Sleepy Hollow” this year. We’d love to see her back on the big screen as the most stylish member of this group.
Sarah Hyland as Alexis
After her performance in “Vampire Academy,” there’s no doubt that Sarah could rock the role of Alexis, who gets increasingly hysterical as the story begins to unfold.
Miley Cyrus as Brooklyn
Redferns/Neil Lupin
Yeah, yeah, Miley isn’t making movies lately. But not only does she already have the requisite platinum blonde pixie cut for this part, let’s be real: she could play the possible victim of a demonic possession like nobody’s business.
“The Merciless” will be in theaters who-knows-when, but it will be on shelves June 12.
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