We now have our first look at Academy Award winner Christian Bale in the upcoming Netflix gothic crime thriller, The Pale Blue Eye. Released courtesy of Netflix, the image finds Bale sporting a long, scraggly beard and short top hat as he makes his way through an eerie forest in what is certainly one of the most classically gothic images we have seen for some time. You can check out the new image from The Pale Blue Eye below.

The Pale Blue Eye
Netflix

Adapted from Louis Bayard's 2006 novel of the same name, The Pale Blue Eye is expected to follow the same plot as the source novel and will drop audiences into 1830. At West Point Academy, a young cadet’s body is discovered swinging from a rope in an apparent suicide. But the next morning, something horrific has happened. Someone has broken into the room where the body was laid and removed the heart. At a loss for answers and desperate to avoid any negative publicity, the Academy calls on the services of a former police detective from New York City and now local civilian, Augustus 'Gus' Landor, played by Christian Bale.

Now a restless widower, Landor agrees to come out of retirement to take on the case. The real twist comes when Landor is partnered up with a young cadet at the academy, who just so happens to be real-life legendary writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe, played by Harry Potter and The Queen's Gambit star Harry Melling.

The Pale Blue Eye also stars Gillian Anderson (The Crown), Lucy Boynton (Bohemian Rhapsody), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist), Toby Jones (First Cow), Harry Lawtey (Industry), Simon McBurney (Carnival Row), Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner), Hadley Robinson (Moxie), Joey Brooks (Molly’s Game), Brennan Cook (Encounter), Gideon Glick (Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Fred Hechinger (The White Lotus), Matt Helm (Tragedy of Macbeth), Steven Maier (The Plot Against America), Charlie Tahan (Ozark) and Robert Duvall (The Judge).

The Pale Blue Eye Will Land on Netflix in 2023

netflix logo
Netflix

The Pale Blue Eye is the latest offering from writer and director Scott Cooper, who has wanted to bring Louis Bayard’s 2006 novel to the screen for more than a decade. Cooper is best known for Crazy Heart starring Jeff Bridges, Black Mass starring Johnny Depp, and the recent horror outing Antlers. The filmmaker will reunite with Out of the Furnace and Hostiles star Christian Bale for The Pale Blue Eye, with Bale also on board as a producer alongside his starring role.

The Pale Blue Eye will have a limited theatrical release on December 23, 2022, before streaming on Netflix on January 6, 2023.

The Pale Blue Eye is just one intriguing project on Christian Bale’s horizon, with the star of The Dark Knight due to feature alongside fellow A-listers Margot Robbie and John David Washington in director David O. Russell’s Amsterdam, which finds the trio as three friends—a doctor, a nurse, and an attorney—who become the prime suspects in a murder in the 1930s. Amsterdam is scheduled to be released in the United States on October 7, 2022, by 20th Century Studios.