‘Rebecca’ preview: ‘Downton’ star leads Netflix’s Daphne du Maurier adaptation

Netfix has announced the release date for its upcoming Rebecca movie.

Based on Daphne du Maurier’s classic romantic Gothic thriller, the movie was shot in the UK and France last summer.

Rebecca was first published in 1938 and previously adapted by Alfred Hitchcock for his 1940 film, starring Sir Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine.

Netflix’s new adaptation has been scripted by Jane Goldman, who wrote 2012’s The Woman in Black.

The cast is led by Armie Hammer and Lily James as aristocratic widower Maxim de Winter and his new wife.

Hammer is best known for his roles in Call Me By Your Name and The Man from UNCLE, while James has enjoyed a run of acclaimed parts since playing Lady Rose in Downton Abbey.

They’re joined by Keeley Hawes (The Durrells), Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale), Sam Riley (SS-GB), and Ben Crompton (Game of Thrones).

Four Weddings and a Funeral star Kristin Scott Thomas is playing Mrs Danvers.

Director Ben Wheatley recently told Empire magazine. “The idea of du Maurier smuggling a ghost story and a thriller and a betrayal inside a romance story, like a Russian doll, was really good.

“That genre-jumping thing is something I’ve had in my own work, and the connection made sense.”

Rebecca will premiere exclusively on Netflix around the world on Wednesday 21st October.

The story follows a newly-married young woman who, on arriving at her husband’s imposing family estate on a bleak English coast, finds herself battling the shadow of his dead first wife, the mysterious Rebecca, whose legacy continues to haunt the house.

Daphne du Maurier’s novel Rebecca is available on Amazon.