'The Invisible Man' Will Make 'The Haunting Of Hill House' Star Oliver Jackson-Cohen Disappear

Oliver Jackson-Cohen is about to get transparent for The Invisible Man. The Haunting of Hill House star has landed the titular role in Blumhouse's horror reboot, which also stars Elisabeth Moss. Leigh Whannel is directing this new take on the tale, which subverts the original story about a mad scientist who ends up turning himself invisible.THR says Oliver Jackson-Cohen, who played the troubled Luke on Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House, is the new Invisible Man. Elisabeth Moss, Aldis Hodge, Harriet Dyer and Storm Reid also star. And while Jackson-Cohen is the one turning invisible, he's not the lead character here. Instead, the film is told from the perspective of Moss's Cecilia, "who receives the news of her abusive ex-boyfriend's suicide. She begins to re-build her life for the better, but her sense of reality is put into question when she begins to suspect her deceased lover is not actually dead."

Jackson-Cohen is playing that ex-boyfriend, and as that synopsis suggests, rumors of his death are greatly exaggerated, and he's still lurking about...unseen. "Part of the reason why I wanted to do it is I actually felt like it was a really feminist story of female empowerment and a victim kind of overcoming something," Elisabeth Moss said in a previous interview. "I don't even know what I'm allowed to say about it! I'm not The Invisible Man, but there is an Invisible Man — if that makes any sense."

While The Invisible Man is being distributed by Universal, it's not part of their disastrous Dark Universe franchise, which planned to reboot a bunch of classic Universal Monsters for the modern era. That plan instantly fell apart with The Mummy, a movie absolutely no one liked. At first, it looked like Universal might try to soldier on with Bride of Frankenstein, but pre-production on that film was shut down, and the Dark Universe is dead. Now, Universal will try something different, focusing on individual films rather than big connected universes – and honestly, that's the best way to go.

Director Leigh Whannel wrote scripts for Saw, Insidious and more, and directed the kick-ass horror/sci-fi flick Upgrade. I'm excited to see what he does with this material, and have no doubt we're in for something special.

The Invisible Man opens March 13, 2020.