The Hunted adapted for screen media release

Ben Mendelsohn, Abbey Lee, Toby Wallace and Eliza Scanlen to star in film adaptation of Gabriel Bergmoser’s bestselling novel, THE HUNTED.

Writer and director John Michael McDonagh (Calvary, The Guard, Ned Kelly), with Film Constellation and CAA Media Finance will adapt The Hunted novelby Gabriel Bergmoser for film in Australia in 2025.

As the first film in McDonagh’s trilogy of thrillers, Bergmoser’s novel adaptation will star Ben Mendelsohn (Star Wars: Rogue One) Abbey Lee (Horizons: An American Saga), Toby Wallace (The Bikeriders) and Eliza Scanlen (Babyteeth), and is set to be produced by John Michael McDonagh and Elizabeth Eves’ House of Un-American Activities (The Forgiven), Trevor Matthews and Nick Gordon of Brookstreet Pictures (The Brutalist) and Kate Glover (Foe).

The film will captivate audiences with the book’s graphic and electrifying cat and mouse game, set in the Australian outback with all the terror and gore of 1970s Ozploitation film.

The Hunted is a ferociously fast-paced, visceral, tense and utterly electric novel set on a lonely, deserted highway, deep in the Australian badlands.

Frank is a service station owner on a little-used highway who just wants a quiet life. His granddaughter has been sent to stay with him to fix her attitude, but they don’t talk a lot.

When a badly injured young woman arrives at Frank’s service station with several cars in pursuit, Frank and a handful of unsuspecting customers are thrust into a life-or-death standoff.

But who are this group of men and women who will go to any lengths for revenge? And what do they want? Other than no survivors …?

ABOUT GABRIEL BERGMOSER

Award-winning Melbourne-based author and playwright, Gabriel Bergmoser won the prestigious Sir Peter Ustinov Television Scriptwriting Award in 2015, was nominated for the 2017 Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing and won several awards at the 2017 VDL One Act Play Festival circuit. In 2016 his first young adult novel, Boone Shepard, was shortlisted for the Readings Young Adult Prize. His first novel for adults, The Hunted (2020), became a national bestseller. Since then, he has published the thrillers The Inheritance (2021) and The Caretaker (2023), which was shortlisted for the 2024 Ngaio Marsh Awards. He also published the YA novel The True Colour of a Little White Lie (2021) and the middle-grade adventure Andromache Between Worlds (2024). Gabriel’s latest adult thriller, The Hitchhiker published Aug 2024. His new thriller, High Rise, will be published in 2025.

PRAISE FOR THE HUNTED

‘This slice of outback noir is … at once exhilarating, gleefully vicious and totally race-to-the-finish-line unputdownable’ – The Observer

‘An audacious walk on the wildest side of outback noir … a vivid thriller’ – Sydney Morning Herald

‘A perfectly paced, thrilling read with an unrelenting sense of dread and menace’ – Books+Publishing

ABOUT FILM CONSTELLATION

Film Constellation boasts two dynamic production houses in London and Paris, working closely with our international talent community, to co-produce and develop projects with a collective cinematic experience in mind. Because we put the emphasis on projects that move us in different ways, we like to work across genres, and empower directors to manifest distinctive artistic visions, fostering culturally rich narratives with a universal appeal.

The UK company produced DANCE FIRST, by Academy Award nominee James Marsh, in co-production with 2LE Media and Sky Studios. The Samuel Beckett biopic was sold in over 50 territories and released by Studio Canal in the UK, and Magnolia Pictures in the US.

Other productions include THE LESSON, directed by Alice Troughton, co-produced with Camille Gatin, Judy Tossel, and Cassandra Siegsgaard. The film starring Richard E. Grant and Julie Delpy was released internationally by Focus Features, and Bleeker Street Pictures in the US.

Upcoming films are Durga Chew-Bose’ Françoise Sagan adaptation BONJOUR TRISTESSE executive produced by Fabien Westerhoff, in co-production with Babe Nation, Cinenovo and Elevation.

ABOUT CREATIVE ARTISTS AGENCY

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GABRIEL BERGMOSER IS AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW