Regina Hall has joined Dwayne Johnson in “Lizard Music,” Benny Safdie’s live-action/CGI adaptation of Daniel Pinkwater’s 1976 novel for Amazon MGM Studios and United Artists. Hall will play a friend and co-worker of Johnson’s character, according to Deadline, joining a cast that already includes Alicia Silverstone, Tim Heidecker and newcomer Theo Leber, a fourth grader from the Chicago area making his feature debut in the lead role.
The film follows a boy left largely on his own who stumbles onto a secret late-night broadcast of lizards making otherworldly music, an encounter that opens a door into a hidden world. His search for answers leads him to an eccentric figure known as the Chicken Man, played by Johnson, and the man’s companion, a 111-year-old chicken named Claudia.
Safdie, who wrote and is directing the film, described the premise to Deadline as a boy discovering a sentient island of lizards with their own broadcast television, who invite him to visit; the Chicken Man then joins him on the journey to find them.
The project reunites Johnson with Safdie following last year’s “The Smashing Machine,” and marks another example of the actor branching into stranger, more idiosyncratic material after years dominated by large-scale action franchises. Johnson is producing the film in addition to starring in it.
Hall arrives fresh off reprising her role in “Scary Movie 6” and starring in Peacock’s “The Five-Star Weekend.” Leber’s casting followed a monthslong search process and represents a potentially significant break for the young actor. No production start date or release window has been announced for “Lizard Music.”
