Scottish actors Gerard Butler and Peter Mullan are to team up in a physchological thriller set on an uninhabited Hebridean island.
The story has echoes of the world’s greatest lighthouse mystery.
Former Screen Star of Tomorrow Joe Alwyn will also lead Danish director Kristoffer Nyholm’s psychological thriller Keepers. Nyholm is best known for The Killing.
The action is set on an uninhabited island 20 miles from the rugged Scottish coast. There, three lighthouse keepers arrive for a six-week shift. As Thomas (Mullan), James (Butler) and Donald (Alwyn) settle into their usual, solitary routines, they stumble upon something that isn’t theirs to keep. When a boat appears in the distance that might hold the answer to their questions, a battle for survival ensues as personal greed replaces loyalty and three honest men are led down a path to destruction.
Nyholm calls the film, “a journey from innocence to animalistic survival.
The greatest lighthouse mystery happened on the Flannan Isles in the Outer Hebrides. Three lighthouse keepers disappeared from the remote isles in 1900.
It was on Boxing Day, that it was discovered that the three keepers James Ducat, Thomas Marshall and Donald MacArthur had vanished.
To this day nobody has solved what happened to them – a giant wave, murder, suicide, kidnap and even a sea monster have all been suggested as causes over the years.
Nyholm said: “I feel incredibly fortunate to have Gerard Butler, Peter Mullan and Joe Alwyn leading the cast of Keepers – great actors who are deeply committed to this project, and who will go the distance.”
Protagonist Pictures is handling the the international rights.
Protagonist CEO Mike Goodridge added: “This project has been close to our hearts for a couple of years now, so it’s exciting to see it come together with such a perfect cast. We have been waiting for Kristoffer Nyholm to commit to his first feature film, so are thrilled to be presenting this heart stoppingly suspenseful package to international buyers.”