Footage: Getty Pictures
After the monumental success of All Quiet on the Western Entrance, director Edward Berger struck a brand new first-look cope with Netflix. Below this new deal, his first main challenge with the streamer will likely be The Ballad of a Small Participant thriller starring Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton, scheduled for launch on October twenty ninth. Right here’s the visual exposure on the film and every little thing we all know to this point.
Edward Berger will direct the film, whereas Rowan Joffe, whose writing credit embody Tin Star, The American, The Informer, and extra, will write the script. Mike Goodridge is producing by way of his Good Chaos banner, together with Berger for his 9 Hours banner and Matthew James Wilkinson for Stigma Movies.
Berger has a number of different initiatives on Netflix following his large success with All Quiet on the Western Entrance. He’s hooked up to The 39 Steps as an govt producer and director and can be publicly introduced to be a part of an adaptation of Christopher Reiche’s The Take. He was hooked up to a challenge known as The Atomic Bazaar, however improvement on that has ceased. Final yr, we additionally heard he was hooked up to a film challenge known as Final Journey, about somebody crusing worldwide and going after a lacking ship full of kit from the Iraq Battle.
Manufacturing of this movie passed off between June and August 2024, and the filming passed off authentically in Macau and Hong Kong.
What’s the plot of The Ballad of a Small Participant?
Netflix’s The Ballad of a Small Participant relies on Lawrence Osborne’s 2014 novel. Right here’s the official Netflix logline for the film:
“The story follows a high-stakes gambler who decides to put low in Macau after his previous and money owed meet up with him. Alongside the best way he encounters a kindred spirit who may simply maintain the important thing to his salvation.”
Right here’s a extra prolonged plot synopsis of Osborne’s novel as seen on Amazon:
As evening falls on Macau and the neon indicators that line the rain-slick streets come alive, Doyle – “Lord Doyle” to his fellow gamers – descends into his on line casino of option to strive his luck on the baccarat tables which might be the anchor of his present existence. A corrupt English lawyer who has escaped prosecution by fleeing to the East, Doyle spends his nights consuming and playing and his days sleeping off his excesses, frequently haunted by his previous. Taking refuge in a sequence of louche and dimly lit motels, he watches his fortune rise and fall because the playing cards determine his destiny.
In a second of disaster he meets Dao-Ming, an enigmatic Chinese language lady who seems to be a denizen of the casinos similar to himself, and appears to supply him salvation within the type of each cash and love. However as Doyle makes an attempt to make a uncommon and true connection, all that he accepts as actuality appears to be slipping from his grasp.
We received our very first have a look at the brand new film in November 2024 when Vanity Fair previewed various 2025 movies coming up:
Image: Netflix / Vainness Honest
On July seventeenth, 2025, Netflix launched further first seems:
Who’s forged in The Ballad of a Small Participant?
Colin Farrell has been forged as Doyle in Netflix’s The Ballad of a Small Participant. His most up-to-date credit embody Banshees of Inisherin, The Batman, The Gents, and extra. He’s coming sizzling off his return because the Batman villain Penguin in Max’s The Penguin.
Becoming a member of Farrell will likely be Tilda Swinton, whose position hasn’t been confirmed. Swinton’s current credit embody The Killer, Throusand Years of Longing, Asteroid Metropolis and extra.
On Could thirteenth, 2024 – scooper Jeff Sneider revealed that Fala Chen (Shang-chi, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire) had landed the third lead position. Netflix later confirmed the news. Jason Tobin can be hooked up to the film as a star, as is Mr Huang. He’s finest recognized for roles within the HBO sequence Warrior and Quick and Livid 9.
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