Kirsten Dunst Joins Joel Edgerton & Michael Shannon In Jeff Nichols’ ‘Midnight Special’

Depending on your own age, you’ll be horrified in varying degrees by the revelation that 2014 marks Kirsten Dunst‘s 25th year in showbusiness. The actress—still only 31—made her debut in Woody Allen‘s segment of “New York Stories,” before going on to notable early roles in “The Bonfire Of The Vanities,” “Little Women” and most famously, “Interview With The Vampire.” Her career’s had its ups and downs over time, but with a Cannes Best Actress trophy for “Melancholia” a couple of years back, she’s never been more respected. And in her biggest subsequent gig, she’s just signed up with another Croisette-approved auteur.

Deadline report that Dunst has nabbed the female lead in “Midnight Special,” the sci-fi tinged new picture from “Take Shelter” and “Mud” helmer Jeff Nichols, joining Joel Edgerton and the director’s regular collaborator Michael Shannon. The logline’s been kept mostly under wraps to date, but the story in Deadline reveals the first plot hints, namely that “a father and his 8-year-old go on the run when dad realizes the boy has some kind of special powers.” It’s unclear if Shannon or Edgerton is playing the father, or who Dunst will be playing.

It’s quite a Spielberg-esque premise from a director who’s already proved to be quite inspired by the likes of “Close Encounters” and “E.T” —though Nichols told us earlier this year that there’s as much John Carpenter in the DNA—and we’re excited to see what he can do on a bigger, studio-backed canvas (Warner Bros are funding the film). Hopefully it means that the genre elements fit in more organically, rather than being, oh, say, randomly shoehorned into a from-nowhere gunfight at the end (*cough* “Mud”). No word on when it starts filming, but hopefully it’ll be soon, so we get it before 2014 is out.