The updates from Netflix's Geeked Week 2023 just keep coming. It's been a hectic few days, but the streamer saved the first look at one of its most anticipated projects for near the end of the online fan festival.
Stranger Things' Millie Bobby Brown plays Elodie, a young princess about to marry a neighboring prince, but the opposing kingdom surprisingly plans to use her as a sacrifice to appease a raging dragon and pay an ancient debt.
In this high fantasy fairytale, there's no dashing and heroic prince that's coming to the princess' rescue. Instead, she'll have to save herself from the dragon's lair.
Rumor has it that Brown's heroine slays the dragon early in the film, and that the film spends the majority of its time dealing with the ramifications from her survival.
Joining Brown in the film are Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), Robin Wright (Wonder Woman, House of Cards), Shohreh Aghdashloo (The Expanse), Nick Robinson (Jurassic World), Ray Winstone (The Departed, Black Widow), Brooke Carter (The Peripheral), Mens-Sana Tamakloe (Inception) will play a Knight, Sonya Nisa (Red Rose) and Rui M Tomas (Lusitânia).
Bassett plays Lady Bayford, Princess Elodie's stepmother while Wright portrays Queen Isabelle, the mother of the prince Elodie is set to marry.
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later, Intruders) is directing from a script written by Dan Mazeau (Wrath of the Titans, Fast X).
There is currently no exact release date for Damsel but Netflix tells fans to expect the film to be released at some point in 2024. The film was originally scheduled to be released on October 13, 2013, but was postponed due to the recently resolved, SAG-AFTRA actor's strike.
A novelization of the screenplay from Evelyn Skye was published on April 18, 2023.
The official synopsis for the film reads, "Damsel is a taut contained thriller about a Princess that thinks she is marrying a prince only to be thrown into a pit where she is being sacrificed to a dragon. Brown plays Elodie, who’s anxiously awaiting her wedding to Prince Henry and feeling pressure from her Father, who needs the money her marriage will bring, be a good, obedient wife.
After marrying Henry, Elodie realizes she’s been tricked into becoming a sacrificial offering for a cruel dragon who intends to eat her. Elodie must fight her way out of the dragon’s lair and eventually saves herself by slaying the Dragon.”