The year is 2024, and Osgood Perkins is yearning to create another movie after the success of Longlegs, but life had other plans. The journey to Perkins’ Keeper was a complicated one, marred by the Hollywood strikes; Perkins was determined to find a way. Even if he had to find (legal) loopholes to do it. During a discussion of the making of The Monkey, Perkins detailed how crying on the floor resulted in Keeper shooting in just 14 days.
“When we made Longlegs, we were like, ‘Let’s make The Monkey right away because we love everybody, and when we worked in Vancouver, I fell in love with everybody. We got the script, we got the money, we got the people, and we got the thing. Ah, there’s a strike, and I couldn’t do it. So, I kind of cried for a minute because I was really invested in doing the movie. 30 minutes later, I got up off the ground. I was on the ground; I’m a grownup. Don’t forget to cry sometimes, grown-ups. So, I get up off the ground, and I call my producer. I’m like, ‘Chris, we have to make a movie,’ and he said, ‘What do you mean? Everybody’s on strike: actors, writers, it’s all done. I said, ‘I don’t care. We have to figure it out. He was like, ‘We could do found footage, I guess. I was like, ‘Yeah, I guess we could do found footage, sort of like a Skinamarink kind of thing. Just kind of put the camera on the floor, roll it around, put on cartoons, and whisper.”
“But then what happened was we discovered, oh, we can get a guy, Nick Lepard. this lovely guy is Canadian and not in the Writer Guild, he could write a movie for us. I could get Canadian actors who don’t want to work for SAG but can work for the Canadian Union and get them. Cut to, we found a house, and we wrote a script. I didn’t touch it. I’m a member of the Writers Guild; they’ll come find me. He wrote a script, we found the actors, we got a house, and we did a thing. It’s Tatiana Maslany, and it’s Rossif Sutherland who’s Donald Sutherland’s youngest son. We did this thing in a house, and from the moment that I got up from crying and called my producer Chris to wrapping the picture, it was something like 14 weeks. Then we made The Monkey, and then we’re finishing Keeper, and Neon’s putting them all out. We can’t be stopped. Let’s go.”
Fans won’t have to wait long to see a trailer from Keeper; reportedly, fans will get a glimpse of the trailer during their screening of The Monkey as a post-credits scene. Keeper stars Tatiana Maslany and Rossif Sutherland as Liz and Malcolm, a couple spending a romantic weekend to celebrate their anniversary at a secluded cabin. When Malcolm suddenly has to return to the city and Liz is left alone, she finds herself with an “unspeakable evil” for company instead, which unveils the cabin’s “horrifying secrets.”
Keeper, which is due to be released on October 3rd, will be Perkins’ third film in the last 15 months since Longlegs arrived in theaters in July 2024. The Nicolas Cage and Maika Monroe-led flick was a hit with critics and audiences alike and made over $125 million at the global box office on a budget of under $10 million.
In a preemptive deal, Neon acquired the rights and will distribute in the U.S. and handle international sales rights to the film in Cannes, with Elevation Pictures set to distribute in Canada. Executive producers include Tatiana Maslany, Marlaina Mah for Oddfellows, Noah Segal and Laurie May for Elevation Pictures, Brian Kavanaugh Jones, Fred Berger and Peter Micelli on behalf of Range Media Partners, John Hegeman and Vince Totino for Wayward Entertainment, and Bonner Bellew for Welcome Villain.
Maslany is best-known for Orphan Black, which won her an Emmy, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and Woman in Gold. Sutherland is known for Possessor, Orphan: First Kill, and has Fox’s upcoming series Murder in a Small Town. Perkins described Maslany as, “A fabulous radio, and every time you tune the dial, it’s something different, but everything is great. If you do 10 takes with Tatiana, you get 10 things. You sit in the editing room, and you’re like, ‘Hm, they’re all good. What does this scene mean because she’s given me 10 versions of what it means.’ She’s a goddess.'”
Perkins, the son of Anthony Perkins and Berry Berenson, began his career as an actor, with his first role as young Norman Bates in Psycho II. As a filmmaker, he has written and directed the horror films The Blackcoat’s Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House. Most recently, Perkins directed Gretel & Hansel from a screenplay by Rob Hayes and the upcoming The Monkey.
The Monkey releases in theater on February 21st. To learn more about The Monkey check out our interview and to learn more about Keeper, check out our interview in the video above.
