A medieval revenge thriller set in 1300s India, directed by Monkey Man's Dev Patel, just got picked up by A24 for $30 million. If that sentence made your brain glitch—good. That's the point.
According to Deadline, A24 swooped in after a bidding war to nab The Peasant, Patel's sophomore feature as director, writer, and star. Yes, another triple-threat swing from a guy who turned shaky cam chaos (Monkey Man) into box office buzz.
But The Peasant isn't just Patel's next act—it's a cultural and cinematic remix. Originally set in Italy with Vatican intrigue, the story's been gutted and rebuilt in feudal India. Think Braveheart rage with John Wick precision—on horseback, with turbans. And somehow, it might work.
The film's journey from the 2023 Black List to a $30M A24 deal reflects a growing trend: Hollywood's obsession with auteur-driven genre mashups. We've seen this before—think Robert Eggers' The Northman, a Viking epic wrapped in arthouse surrealism. Or David Lowery's The Green Knight, which also starred Patel, serving up Arthurian myth with existential dread and indie grit.
But here's what makes The Peasant different: it's transplanting a Western narrative trope—vengeance, honor, hidden identity—into a rarely depicted historical context. Indian cinema has long thrived on revenge tales, but Western studios rarely bankroll them with this much ambition or budget. And certainly not under the vision of a British-Indian actor flipping the lens.
Thunder Road Pictures, known for the John Wick franchise, is producing. That's no small detail. This isn't just going to be moody and introspective—it's probably going to kick down some literal doors.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: The Peasant might be too weird, too bold, too unclassifiable for a safe studio bet. Which is exactly why it might matter.
Would you follow Dev Patel into medieval mayhem? Hit the comments.
