Nicholas Hoult May Sing Soprano In Anne Rice Adaptation Cry To Heaven

The Superman and Mad Max: Fury Road star leads a stellar cast in a historical drama set among the castrati in 18th century Italy

How’s this for a (high) pitch? Nicholas Hoult will star in Cry To Heaven, an adaptation of Anne Rice‘s 1982 novel of the same name from A Single Man and Nocturnal Animals director Tom Ford.

One of Rice’s lesser known works (no vampires, y’see), the book and, presumably, the film follow the fortunes of two men in 18th century Italy: an ambitious Venetian noble and a castrated singer from Calabria who are both making their way through the opera world.

Yes, castrated. It was a thing. A horrible, horrible thing.

As reported in Deadline, Hoult leads an impressive cast that includes Aaron Taylor Johnson, Ciarán Hinds, George MacKay, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, Paul Bettany, Owen Cooper, Daniel Quinn-Toye, Hunter Schafer, Josephine Thiesen, Thandiwe Newton, Theodore Pellerin, Daryl McCormack, Cassian Bilton, Hauk Hannemann, Lux Pascal, and, making her feature acting debut, Adele.

Pre-production is currently underway in London and Rome, with filming set for January and a release late in 2026.

This is interesting stuff. Anne Rice is definitely having a posthumous moment right now, thanks to the success of the Interview With The Vampire TV series and its spin-offs, and Tom Ford is a spectacularly talented filmmaker – hard to believe his last film, Nocturnal Animals, came out all the way back in 2016. And Nicholas Hoult is one of the most gifted actors currently working (and having done both a Ned Kelly and a Mad Max film, he’s pretty much an honourary Australian).

At a guess, Hoult’s playing the young noble Tonio Treschi, who is betrayed and castrated by his evil elder brother, and studies under the peasant-born castrato, Guido Maffeo. That’s a hell of a role; Rice’s novel is, as you’d expect, extremely horny, very queer, and willfully perverse – just what fans love about the late novelists oeuvre. If Ford commits to the bit, I’d expect this to be one of the most controversial and fascinating films of 2026.