No surprise here, Willem Dafoe has joined Robert Eggers’ “Werwulf.” The cast already included leads Lily-Rose Depp and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
Dafoe, a longtime Eggers collaborator, has now been cast in the filmmaker’s last four films, including “The Lighthouse,” “The Northman,” and “Nosferatu”; it would have been very surprising if he didn’t turn up in “Werwulf.”
A fifth team-up is already in the works. Eggers actually has another project in development — a dark reimagining of “A Christmas Carol.” and that one has Dafoe attached, but in the lead role, as Scrooge.
“Werwulf,” currently slated for a Christmas 2026 release, is set to begin shooting this September in Elstree, England, per a UK casting call that recently made the rounds. Eggers is reportedly deep in pre-production and is again collaborating with Icelandic poet and screenwriter Sjón, with whom he co-wrote “The Northman”
Eggers has described the film as “the darkest thing I’ve ever written,” a bold claim given the unrelenting bleakness of his past work. One member of Eggers’ own sound team recently posted on BlueSky that he “needed a hug” after reading the script. If that’s any indication, “Werwulf” could make The Witch look like a bedtime story.
The story is said to take place in 13th-century England, and in typical Eggers fashion, the dialogue will stay true to the time period, using “Old English.” Eggers had at one point considered shooting the film in black-and-white, a move that was reportedly scrapped in favor of a more traditional visual palette.
In the meantime, Dafoe, a workaholic, and genuinely great actor, has four films that have already been shot and potentially ready for release, including Miguel Ángel Jiménez’s “The Birthday Party,” Jennifer Peedom’s “Tenzing,” Nadia Latif’s “The Man in the Basement,” and most intriguingly, Kent Jones’ “Late Fame.”